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A TURKISH WOMAN'S 
EUROPEAN IMPRESSIONS 




Zeyneb in her Paris Drawing-room 

She is wearing the Yashmak and Feradje, or cloak. 



A TURKISH WOMAN'S 
EUROPEAN IMPRESSIONS 



BY 

ZEYNEB HANOUM 

(HEROINE OF PIERRE LOTI'S NOVEL 

"LES DESENCHANTEES") 



EDITED &» WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY 

GRACE ELLISON 



WITH 23 ILLUSTRATIONS 

FROM PHOTOGRAPHS & A DRAWING BY 

AUGUSTE RODIN 



PHILADELPHIA 
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 

LONDON : SEELEY, SERVICE &> CO. LTD. 
i9 J 3 



I 



CONTENTS 



CHAP. PAGE 

I. A DASH FOR FREEDOM ... 21 

II. zeyneb's GIRLHOOD ... 31 

III. BEWILDERING EUROPE ... 47 

iv. sculpture's forbidden joy . . 57 

V. THE ALPS AND ARTIFICIALITY . 63 

vi. freedom's doubtful enchant- 
ment ...... 73 

VII. GOOD-BYE TO YOUTH — TAKING THE 

VEIL 83 

VIII. A MISFIT EDUCATION ... 93 
IX. " SMART WOMEN " THROUGH THE 

VEIL 105 

X. THE TRUE DEMOCRACY . . .111 
XI. A COUNTRY PICTURE . . .125 
XII. THE STAR FROM THE WEST — THE EM- 
PRESS EUGENIE .... 131 
XIII. TURKISH HOSPITALITY — A REVOLU- 
TION FOR CHILDREN . . . 137 
ix 



x CONTENTS 

CHAP. PAGE 

XIV. A STUDY IN CONTRASTS . . .145 

XV. DREAMS AND REALITIES . . .153 

XVI. THE MOON OF RAMAZAN . . .169 

XVII. AND IS THIS REALLY FREEDOM ? .179 

XVIII. THE CLASH OF CREEDS . . . 201 

XIX. IN THE ENEMY'S LAND . . .217 

XX. THE END OF THE DREAM . . 233 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

Zeyneb in her Paris Drawing-room . . Frontispiece 

A Turkish Child with a Slave . . To face page 34 

A Turkish House .... 34 

" Les Desenchantees " (by M. Rodin) „ 60 

A Turkish Dancer .... „ 70 
A Turkish Lady dressed as a Greek 

Dancer ..... „ 70 
Turkish Lady in Tcharchoff (outdoor 

costume) ..... „ 88 * 
Silent Gossip of a Group of Turkish 

Women ,,102 

Turkish Ladies in their Garden with 

their Children's Governesses , ,, 102 

Yashmak and Mantle . \ . „ 134 

Melek in Yashmak .... ,, 140 

Zeyneb in her Western Drawing-room „ 160 ^ 

Turkish Ladies paying a Visit . . „ 172 
Zeyneb with a black Face- veil thrown 

back ,,184 



xii ILLUSTRATIONS 

A Corner of a Turkish Harem of to-day To face page 192 



Turkish Women and Children in the 








Country . 


j) 


192 




The Balcony at the Back of Zey neb's 








House . . . 


» 


206 




Zeyneb and Melek .... 


>■> 


206 


The Drawing-room of a Harem show- 








ing the Bridal Throne 


>■> 


214 




A Corner of the Harem . 


i> 


214 




A Caique on the Bosphorus 


5) 


222 




Turkish Women in the Country 


•>> 


222 


Melek on the Verandah at Fon- 








tainebleau .... 


J5 


228 





INTRODUCTION 

IN the preface of his famous novel, Les Desert- 
chanties, M. Pierre Loti writes : " This novel is 
pure fiction ; those who take the trouble to find 
real names for Zeyneb, Melek, or Andre will be 
wasting their energy, for they never existed." 

These words were written to protect the two 
women, Zeyneb and Melek, who were mainly 
responsible for the information contained in 
that book, from the possibility of having to 
endure the terror of the Hamidian regime as a 
consequence of their indiscretion. This pre- 
caution was unnecessary, however, seeing that 
the two heroines, understanding the impossi- 
bility of escaping the Hamidian vigilance, had 
fled to Europe, at great peril to their lives, before 
even the novel appeared. 

Although it is not unusual to find Turkish 
women who can speak fluently two or three 
European languages (and this was very striking 
to me when I stayed in a Turkish harem), and 
although M. Loti has in his novel taken the 



xiv INTRODUCTION 

precaution to let Melek die, yet it would still 
have been an easy task to discover the identity 
of the two heroines of his book. 

Granddaughters of a Frenchman who for 
les beaux yeux of a Circassian became a Turk 
and embraced Mahometanism, they had been 
signalled out from amongst the enlightened 
women who are a danger to the State, and 
were carefully watched. 

For a long time many cultured Turkish 
women had met to discuss what could be done 
for the betterment of their social status ; and 
when it was finally decided to make an appeal 
to the sympathy of the world in the form of a 
novel, who better than Pierre Loti, with his 
magic pen and keen appreciation of Turkish 
life, could be found to plead the cause of the 
women of what he calls his " second father- 
land"? 

In one of my letters written to Zeyneb from 
Constantinople, I hinted that the Young Turks 
met in a disused cistern to discuss the Revolution 
which led Europe to expect great things of them. 
The women, too, met in strange places to plot 
and plan — they were full of energetic inten- 
tions, but, with the Turkish woman's difficulty 
of bringing thought into action, they did little 



INTRODUCTION xv 

more than plot and plan, and but for Zeyneb 
and Melek, Les Desenchantees would never have 
been written. 

At the conclusion of his preface, M. Loti says : 
" What is true in my story is the culture allowed 
to Turkish women and the suffering which must 
necessarily follow. This suffering, which to my 
foreign eyes appeared perhaps more intense, is 
also giving anxiety to my dear friends the Turks 
themselves, and they would like to alleviate it. 
The remedy for this evil I do not claim to have 
discovered, since the greatest thinkers of the 
East are still diligently working to find it." 

Like M. Loti I, too, own my inability to come 
any nearer a solution of this problem. I, who 
through the veil have studied the aimless, un- 
healthy existences of these pampered women, 
am nevertheless convinced that the civilisation 
of Western Europe for Turkish women is a case of 
exchanging the frying-pan for the fire. Zeyneb 
in her letters to me, written between 1906-1912, 
shows that, if her disenchantment with her 
harem existence was bitter, she could never 
appreciate our Western civilisation. 

Turkish women are clamouring for a more 
solid education and freedom. They would cast 
aside the hated veil ; progress demands they 



xvi INTRODUCTION 

should — but do they know for what they are 
asking ? 

"Be warned by us, you Turkish women," I 
said to them, painting the consequences of our 
freedom in its blackest colours, " and do not pull 
up your anchor till you can safely steer your 
ship. My own countrymen have become too 
callous to the bitter struggles of women ; civilisa- 
tion was never meant to be run on these lines, 
therefore hold fast to the protection of your 
harems till you can stand alone." 

Since my return to London, I have sometimes 
spoken on Turkish life, and have been asked 
those very naive questions which wounded the 
pride of Zeyneb Hanoum. When I said I had 
actually stayed in an harem, I could see the male 
portion of my audience, as it were, passing round 
the wink. " You must not put the word 
4 harem ' on the title of your lecture,' 1 said the 
secretary of a certain society. "Many who 
might come to hear you would stay away for 
fear of hearing improper revelations, and others 
would come hoping to hear those revelations 
and go away disappointed." 

In one of her letters to me, Zeyneb complains 
that the right kind of governess is not sent to 
Constantinople. The wonder to me is, when 



INTRODUCTION xvii 

one hears what a harem is supposed to be, that 
European women have the courage to go there 
at all. 

The word harem comes from the Arabic 
" Maharem," which means " sacred or for- 
bidden," and no Oriental word has been more 
misunderstood. It does not mean a collection 
of wives ; it is simply applied to those rooms in 
a Turkish house exclusively reserved for the 
use of the women. Only a blood relation may 
come there to visit the lady of the house, and 
in many cases even cousins are not admitted. 
There is as much sense in asking an Englishman 
if he has a boudoir as in asking a Turk if he has 
a harem ; and to think that when I stayed in 
Turkey, our afternoon's impropriety consisted 
of looking through the latticed windows ! The 
first Bey who passed was to be for me, the second 
for Fathma, and the third for Selma ; this was 
one of our favourite games in the harem. One 
day I remember in the country we waited an 
hour for my Bey to pass, and after all he was not 
a Bey, but a fat old man carrying water. 

The time has not yet come for the Turkish 
woman to vindicate her right to freedom; it 
cannot come by a mere change of law, and it is 
a cruelty on the part of Europeans to encourage 



xviii INTRODUCTION 

them to adopt Western habits which are a part 
of a general system derived from a totally 
different process of evolution. 

In the development of modern Turkey, the 
Turkish woman has already played a great part, 
and she has a great part still to play in the 
creation of a new civilisation ; but present ex- 
perience has shown that no servile imitation of 
the West will redeem Turkey from the evils of 
centuries of patriarchal servitude. 

By a strange irony of fate, it was at Fontaine- 
bleau that I first made the acquaintance of 
Pierre Loti's heroines. To me every inch of 
Fontainebleau was instinct with memories of 
happiness and liberty. It was here that 
Francis I. practised a magnificence which 
dazzled Europe ; here, too, is the wonderful 
wide forest of trees which are still there to listen 
to the same old story. . . . From a Turkish harem 
to Fontainebleau. What a change indeed ! 

The two sisters were sitting on the verandah 
of their villa when I arrived. Zeyneb had 
been at death's door ; she looked as if she were 
there still. 

" Why did you not come to lunch ? " asked 
Melek. 



INTRODUCTION xix 

" I was not invited," I answered. 

" Well, you might have come all the same." 

" Is that the custom in Turkey ? " 

" Why, of course, when you are invited to 
lunch you can come to breakfast instead, or 
the meal after, or not at all. Whenever our 
guests arrive, it is we who are under obligations 
to them for coming." 

" What a comforting civilisation ; I am sure 
I should love to be in Turkey." 

I wanted to ask indiscreet questions. 

" Have you large trees in Turkey with hollows 
big enough to seat two persons ? " I began. 

Melek saw through the trick at once. 

" Ah ! " she answered, " now you are treading 
on dangerous ground ; next time you come to 
see us we shall speak about these things. In 
the meanwhile learn that the charming side of 
life to which you have referred, and about 
which we have read so much in English novels, 
does not exist for us Turkish women. Nothing 
in our life can be compared to yours, and in a 
short time you will see this. We have no right 
to vary ever so little the programme arranged 
for us by the customs of our country ; an ad- 
venture of any kind generally ends in disaster. 
As you may know, we women never see our 



xx INTRODUCTION 

husbands till we are married, and an unhappy 
marriage is none the less awful to bear when it 
is the work of some one else." 

" Do tell me more," I persisted. 

" The marriage of a Turkish woman is an 
intensely interesting subject to anyone but a 
Turkish woman. ..." 

I left my new friends with reluctance, but 
after that visit began the correspondence which 
forms the subject matter of this book. 

GRACE ELLISON. 



CHAPTER I 

A DASH FOR FREEDOM 



A TURKISH WOMAN'S 
EUROPEAN IMPRESSIONS 

CHAPTER I 

A DASH FOR FREEDOM 

A FEW days after my visit to the Desen- 
chantees at Fontainebleau, which is described 
in the Introduction, I received the following 
letter from Zeyneb : 

Fontainebleau, Sept. 1906. 

You will never know, my dear and latest 
friend, the pleasure your visit has given us. It 
was such a new experience, and all the more to 
be appreciated, because we were firmly con- 
vinced we had come to the end of new 
experiences. 

For almost a quarter of a century, in our dear 
Turkey, we longed above all for something new ; 
we would have welcomed death even as a change, 
but everything, everything was always the same. 

23 



24 A DASH FOR FREEDOM 

And now, in the space of eight short months, 
what have we not seen and done ! Every day 
has brought some new impressions, new faces, 
new joys, new difficulties, new disappointments, 
new surprises and new friends ; it seemed to 
both of us that we must have drunk the cup of 
novelty to its very dregs. 

On Sunday, after you had left us, we talked 
for a long time of you and the many subjects 
we had discussed together. 

Sympathy and interest so rarely go hand in 
hand — interest engenders curiosity, sympathy 
produces many chords in the key of affection, 
but the sympathetic interest you felt for us has 
given birth on our side to a sincere friendship, 
which I know will stand the test of time. 

We felt a few minutes after you had been 
with us, how great was your comprehension, not 
only of our actions, but of all the private reasons, 
alas ! so tragic, which made them necessary. 
You understood so much without our having to 
speak, and you guessed a great deal of what 
could not be put into words. That is what a 
Turkish woman appreciates more than any- 
thing else. 

We, who are not even credited with the pos- 
session of a soul, yet guard our souls as our 



A DASH FOR FREEDOM 25 

most priceless treasures. Those who try to force 
our confidence in any way, we never forgive. 
Between friend and friend the highest form of 
sympathy is silence. For hours we Turkish 
women sit and commune with one another 
without speaking. You would, I know, under- 
stand this beautiful side of our life. 

Since our departure from our own country, 
and during these few months we have been in 
France, from all sides we have received kindness. 
We were ready to face yet once more unjust 
criticism, blame, scandal even ; but instead, ever 
since we left Belgrade till we arrived here, every- 
thing has been quite the opposite. All the 
European papers have judged us impartially, 
some have even defended and praised us, but 
not one censured us for doing with our lives 
what it pleased us. 

But in Turkey what a difference ! No Con- 
stantinople paper spoke of our flight. They 
were clever enough to know that by giving vent 
to any ill-feeling, saying what they really 
thought of our " disgraceful " conduct, they 
would draw still more attention to the women's 
cause ; so we were left by the Press of our 
country severely alone. 

The Sultan Hamid, who interested himself a 



26 A DASH FOR FREEDOM 

little too much in our welfare, became very 
anxious about us. Having left no stone un- 
turned to force us to return (he had us arrested 
in the middle of the night on our arrival at 
Belgrade on the plea that my sister was a 
minor, and that both of us had been tricked 
away by an elderly lady for illicit purposes) he 
next ordered that all those European papers in 
which we were mentioned should , be sent to 
him. As our flight drew forth bitter criticism 
of his autocratic government, he must, had he 
really taken the trouble to read about us, have 
found some very uncomfortable truths about 
himself. But that was no new regime. For 
years he has fed himself on these indigestible 
viands, and his mechanism is used to them by 
now. 

I need not tell you that in Constantinople, for 
weeks, these forbidden papers were sold at a 
high price. Regardless of the risk they were 
running, everyone wanted to have news of the 
two women who had had the audacity to escape 
from their homes and the tyranny of the Sultan 
Hamid. In the harems, we were the one topic 
of conversation. At first no one seemed to 
grasp the fact that we had actually gone, but 
when at last the truth slowly dawned upon 



A DASH FOR FREEDOM 27 

them, the men naturally had not a kind word 
to say of us, and we did not expect it would 
be otherwise. But the women, alas ! Many 
were obliged officially to disapprove of our 
action. There were a few, however, who had 
the courage to defend us openly ; they have our 
deepest and sincerest gratitude. But do not 
think for a moment that we blame or feel un- 
kindly towards the others. Have not we, like 
them, had all our lives to suffer and fear and 
pretend as captives always must do ? Could 
they be expected to find in one day the strength 
of character to defend a cause however just, and 
not only just, but their own — their freedom. 

Yes, my friend, we ourselves have lived that 
life of constant fear and dissimulation, of hopes 
continually shattered, and revolt we dared not 
put into words. 

Yet never did the thought occur to us that 
we might adapt ourselves to this existence we 
were forced to lead. We spent our life in striving 
for one thing only — the means of changing it. 

Could we, like the women of the West, we 
thought, devote our leisure to working for the 
poor, that would at least be some amusement to 
break the monotony. We also arranged to meet 
and discuss with intelligent women the question 



28 A DASH FOR FREEDOM 

of organising charity, but the Sultan came down 
upon us with a heavy hand. He saw the danger 
of allowing thinking women to meet and talk 
together, and the only result of this experiment 
was that the number of spies set to watch the 
houses of " dangerous women " was doubled. 

Then it was that we made up our minds, 
after continual failure, that as long as we re- 
mained in our country under the degrading 
supervision of the Hamidian regime, we could do 
nothing, however insignificant, to help forward 
the cause of freedom for women. 

I need not tell you again all the story of our 
escape ; it is like a nightmare to me still, and 
every detail of that horrible journey will remain 
clearly fixed in my mind until death. Shall I 
tell you all that has happened to us since ? 
But so much has been said about us by all sorts 
and conditions of men and women, that you will 
no doubt have already had an overdose. Yet 
I thought I understood, from the sympathetic 
interest you showed us the other afternoon, that 
there was much you would still like to hear. 
Have I guessed rightly ? Then there is nothing 
you shall not know. — Your affectionate 

Zeyneb. 



A DASH FOR FREEDOM 29 

What a long and interesting letter ! and from 
a Turkish woman too ! Several times I read 
and re-read it, then I felt that I could not give 
my new friend a better proof of the pleasure 
that it had given me, than by writing her at 
once to beg for more. But I waited till the 
next day, and finally sent a telegram — " Please 
send another letter." 



CHAPTER II 

ZEYNEB'S GIRLHOOD 



CHAPTER II 

ZEYNEB'S GIRLHOOD 

FoNTAINEBLEAU, Sept. 1906. 

"WHEN I was quite young I loved to read the 
history of my country told in the Arabian 
Nights style. The stories are so vivid and 
picturesque, that even to-day, I remember the 
impression my readings made on me. [Alas ! 
the profession of conteur or raconteur is one 
which has been left behind in the march of 
time.] Formerly every Pasha had a conteur, 
who dwelt in the house, and friends were in- 
vited from all around to come and listen to his 
Arabian Nights stories. The tales that were 
most appreciated were those which touched on 
tragic events. But the stories contained also a 
certain amount of moral reflection, and were told 
in a style which, if ever I write, I will try to 
adopt. The sentences are long, but the rhythm 
of the well-chosen language is so perfect that it 
is almost like a song. 

What a powerful imagination had these men ! 

33 c 



34 ZEYNEB'S GIRLHOOD 

And how their stories delighted me ! There 
were stories of Sultans who poisoned, Ministers 
who were strangled, Palace intrigues which ended 
in bloodshed, and descriptions of battles where 
conqueror and conquered were both crowned 
with the laurels of a hero. But I never for a 
moment thought of these tales but as fiction ! 
Could the history of any country be so awful ! 
Yet was not the story of the reign in which I 
was living even worse, only I was too young to 
know it ? Were not the awful Armenian mas- 
sacres more dreadful than anything the conteurs 
had ever described ? Was not the bare awful 
truth around us more ghastly than any fiction ? 
Indeed, it was. 

How can I impress upon your mind the 
anguish of our everyday life ; our continual 
and haunting dread of what was coming ; no 
one could imagine what it means except those 
Turkish women who, like ourselves, have experi- 
enced that life. 

Had we possessed the blind fatalism of our 
grandmothers, we should probably have suffered 
less, but with culture, as so often happens, we 
began to doubt the wisdom of the Faith which 
should have been our consolation. 

You will say, that I am sad — morbid even ; 




A Turkish Child with a Slave 

Until a Turkish girl is veiled, she leads the life of an ordinary European child. 
She even goes to Embassy balls. This is a great mistake, as it gives her a taste for 
a life which after she is veiled must cease. 




A Turkish House 

The Harem windows are on the top floor to the right. 



ZEYNEB'S GIRLHOOD 35 

but how can I be otherwise when the best years 
of my life have been poisoned by the horrors of 
the Hamidian regime. There are some senti- 
ments which, when transplanted, make me suffer 
even as they did in the land of my birth. I 
am thinking particularly of the agony of waiting. 

Do you think there is in any language a sen- 
tence stronger and more beautiful than that 
which terminates in Loti's Pecheurs d'Islande — 
the tragedy of waiting — with these words, " II 
ne revint jamais " ? 

I mention this to you because my whole 
youth had been so closely allied with this very 
anguish of waiting. 

Imagine for a moment a little Turkish Yali 1 
on the shores of the Bosphorus. It is dark, 
it is still, and for hours the capital of Turkey 
has been deep in slumber. Scarcely a star is 
in the sky, scarcely a light can be seen in the 
narrow and badly-paved streets of the town. 

I had been reading until very late — reading 
and thinking, thinking and reading to deaden 
the uneasiness I always felt when something 
was going to happen. What was coming this 
time? 

1 Yali = a little summer residence resorted to when it is 
too hot to remain in Constantinople itself. 



36 ZEYNEBS GIRLHOOD 

By a curious irony of fate, I had been reading 
in the Bible * of Christ's apostles whose eyes 
were heavy with sleep. But I could not sleep, 
and after a time I could not even read. This 
weary, weary waiting ! 

So I rose from my bed and looked through 
my latticed windows at the beautiful Bos- 
phorus, so calm and still, whilst my very soul 
was being torn with anguish. But what is that 
noise ? What is that dim light slowly sailing 
up the Bosphorus ? My heart begins to beat 
quickly, I try to call out, my voice chokes me. 
The caique has stopped at our Yali. 

Now I know what it is. Four discreet taps 
at my father's window, and his answer " I am 
coming." Like a physician called to a dying 
patient, he dresses and hastily leaves the house. 
It is three o'clock in the morning a la Franque, 2 
but his master is not sleeping. Away yonder, 
in his fortress of Yildiz, the dreaded Sultan 
trembles even more than I. What does he want 

1 The Turkish women with whom I lived in Constanti- 
nople read the Bible by the advice of the Imam (the Teacher 
of the Koran) to help them in the better understanding of 
the Koran. I may add that ZeyneVs knowledge of our 
Scriptures, and her understanding of Christ's teaching, would 
put to shame many professing Christians in our Western 
Churches. 

2 French time, 



ZEYNEB'S GIRLHOOD 37 

with my father ? Will he be pacified this time 
as he has often been before ? What if my 
father should have incurred the wrath of this 
terrible Sultan ? The caique moves away as 
silently as it came. Will my beloved father 
ever return ? There is nothing to do but to go 
on waiting, waiting. 

Let us change the scene. A Turkish official 
has arrived at our house, he has dared to come 
as far as the very door of the harem. He is 
speaking to my mother. 

" I am only doing my duty in seeing if your 
husband is here ? I have every right to go up 
those harem stairs which you are guarding so 
carefully, look in all your rooms and cupboards. 
My duty is to find out where your husband is, 
and to report to his Majesty at once." 

This little incident may sound insignificant 
to you, yet what a tragedy to us ! What was 
to happen to the bread-winner of our family ? 
What had my beloved father done ? 

The explanation of it was simple enough. 
A certain Pasha had maligned him to the Sultan 
in a most disgraceful manner. And the Sultan 
might have believed it, had he not, by the merest 
chance, discovered that my father was at the 



38 ZEYNEB'S GIRLHOOD 

Palace when the Pasha so emphatically said he 
was elsewhere. On such slender evidence, the 
fate of our family was to be weighed ! Would 
it mean exile for our father ? Would we ever 
see him any more ? Again I say, there was 
nothing to do but wait. 

As we told you on Sunday, we Turkish women 
read a great deal of foreign literature, and this 
does not tend to make us any more satisfied 
with our lot. 

Amongst my favourite English books were 

Beatrice Harraden's Ships that Pass in the Night, 1 

passages of which I know by heart, and Lady 

Mary Montagu's Letters. Over and over again, 

and always with fresh interest, I read those 

charming and clever letters. Although they 

are the letters of another century, there is 

nothing in them to shock or surprise a Turkish 

woman of to-day in their criticism of our life. 

It is curious to notice, when reading Lady 

Mary's Letters, how little the Turkey of to-day 

differs from the Turkey of her time ; only, 

Turkey, the child that Lady Mary knew, has 

grown into a big person. 

1 When I asked a Turkish friend to write in my album , 
to my surprise and pride she wrote from memory a passage 
from Ships that Pass in the Night. 



ZEYNEB'S GIRLHOOD 39 

There are two great ways, however, in which 
we have become too modern for Lady Mary's 
book. In costume we are on a level with Paris, 
seeing we buy our clothes there ; and as regards 
culture, we are perhaps more advanced than 
is the West, since we have so much leisure for 
study, and are not hampered with your Western 
methods. And yet how little we are known 
by the European critics ! 

The people of the West still think of us 
women as requiring the services of the public 
letter-writer ! They think of us also — we, who 
have so great an admiration for them, and in- 
terest ourselves in all they are doing — as one 
amongst many wives. Yet Polygamy (and here 
I say a Bismillah * or prayer of thankfulness) 
has almost ceased to exist in Turkey. 

I know even you are longing to make the 
acquaintance of a harem, where there is more 
than one wife, but to-day the number of these 
establishments can be counted on five fingers. 
We knew intimately the wife of a Pasha who had 
more than one wife. He was forty years old, 
a well-known and important personage, and in 
his Palace beside his first wife were many slave- 

1 Prayer which all devout Moslems say before beginning 
a work. 



40 ZEYNEB'S GIRLHOOD 

wives ; the number increased from year to year. 
But again I repeat this is an exception. 

We used often to visit the poor wife, who since 
her marriage had never left her home, her 
husband being jealous of her, as he was of all 
the others ; they were his possessions, and in 
order to err on the safe side, he never let them 
out. 

Our friend, the first wife, was very beautiful, 
though always ailing. Every time we went to 
see her, she was so grateful to us for coming, 
thanked us over and over again for our visit, 
and offered us flowers and presents of no mean 
value. And she looked so happy, continually 
smiling, and was so gentle and kind to all her 
entourage. 

She told our mother, however, of the sorrow 
that was gnawing at her heart-strings, and when 
she spoke of the Pasha she owned how much 
she had suffered from not being the favourite. 
She treated her rivals with the greatest courtesy. 
" It would be easy to forgive," she said, " the 
physical empire that each in turn has over my 
husband, but what I feel most is that he does 
not consult me in preference to the others." 

She had a son fifteen years old, whom she 
loved very dearly, but she seemed to care for the 



ZEYNEB'S GIRLHOOD 41 

fourteen other children of the Pasha quite as 
much, and spoke of them all as " our children." 
Although her husband had bought her as a 
slave, she had a certain amount of knowledge 
too, and she read a great deal in the evenings 
when she was alone, alas ! only too often. 

The view of the Bosphorus, with the ships 
coming and going, was a great consolation to 
her, as it has been to many a captive. And she 
thanked Allah over and over again that she at 
least had this pleasure in life. 

I have often thought of this dear, sweet 
woman in my many moments of revolt, as 
one admires and reverences a saint, but I 
have never been able to imitate her calm 
resignation. 

Unlike our grandmothers, who accepted with- 
out criticism their " written fate," we analysed 
our life, and discovered nothing but injustice 
and cruel, unnecessary sorrow. Resignation 
and culture cannot go together. Resignation 
has been the ruin of our country. There never 
would have been all this suffering, this perpetual 
injustice, but for resignation ; and resignation 
was no longer possible for us, for our Faith was 
tottering. 

But I am not really pitying women more 



42 ZEYNEB'S GIRLHOOD 

than men under the Hamidian regime. A 
man's life is always in danger. Do you know, 
the Sultan was informed when your friend 
Kathleen came to see us ? Every time our 
mother invited guests to the house, she was 
obliged to send the list to his Majesty, who, by 
every means, tried to prevent friends from 
meeting. Two or three Turks meeting together 
in a cafe were eyed with suspicion, and reported 
at head-quarters, so that rather than run risks 
they spent the evenings in the harems with their 
wives. One result, however, of this awful 
tyranny, was that it made the bonds which 
unite a Turkish family together stronger than 
anywhere else in the world. 

Can you imagine what it is to have detectives 
watching your house day and night ? Can 
you imagine the exasperation one feels to think 
that one's life is at the mercy of a wretched 
individual who has only to invent any story 
he likes and you are lost ? Every calumny, 
however stupid and impossible, is listened to 
at head-quarters. The Sultan's life-work (what 
a glorious record for posterity !) has been to 
have his poor subjects watched and punished. 
What his spies tell him he believes. No trial is 



ZEYNEBS GIRLHOOD 43 

necessary, he passes sentence according to his 
temper at the moment — either he has the culprit 
poisoned, or exiles him to the most unhealthy 
part of Arabia, or far away into the desert of 
Tripoli, and often the unfortunate being who 
is thus punished has no idea why he has been 
condemned. 

I shall always remember the awful impres- 
sion I felt, when told with great caution that 
a certain family had disappeared. The family 
consisted of the father, the mother, son and 
daughter, and a valet. They were my neigh- 
bours — quiet, unobtrusive people — and I thought 
all the more of them for that reason. 

One morning, when I looked out of my window, 
I saw my neighbour's house was closed as if no 
one lived there. Without knowing what had 
happened to them, I became anxious, and dis- 
creetly questioned my eunuch, who advised 
me not to speak about them. It appeared, 
however, that in the night the police had 
made an inspection of the house, and no 
one has since then heard of its occupants, or 
dared to ask, for fear of themselves becoming 
" suspect." 

I found out long after, from a cutting sent me 



44 ZEYNEB'S GIRLHOOD 

from a foreign friend in Constantinople, that 
H. Bey's house had been searched, and the 
police — and this in spite of the fact that he 
had been forbidden to write — had found there 
several volumes of verses, and he was con- 
demned to ten years' seclusion in a fortified 
castle at Bassarah. 

This will perhaps give you some idea of the 
conditions under which we were living. Con- 
stant fear, anguish without hope of compensa- 
tion, or little chance of ever having anything 
better. 

That we preferred to escape from this life, in 
spite of the terrible risks we were running, and 
the most tragic consequences of our action, is 
surely comprehensible. 

If we had been captured it would only have 
meant death, and was the life we were leading 
worth while ? We had taken loaded revolvers 
with us, to end our lives if necessary, remember- 
ing the example of one of our childhood friends, 
who tried to escape, but was captured and taken 
back to her husband, who shut her up till the 
end of her days in a house on the shores of the 
Marmora. 

You have paid a very pretty compliment to 



ZEYNEB'S GIRLHOOD 45 

our courage. Yet, after all, does it require very 
much to risk one's life when life is of so little 
value ? In Turkey our existence is so long, so 
intolerably long, that the temptation to drop a 
little deadly poison in our coffee is often too 
great to withstand. Death cannot be worse 
than life, let us try death. — Your affectionate 

Zeyneb. 



CHAPTER III 

BEWILDERING EUROPE 



CHAPTER HI 

BEWILDERING EUROPE 

WHAT a curious thing it was I found so much 
difficulty in answering Zeyneb's letters. To 
send anything banal to my new friend I felt 
certain was to run the risk of ending the corre- 
spondence. 

She knew I was in sympathy with her ; she 
knew I could understand, as well as any one, 
how awful her life must have been, but to have 
told her so would have offended her. Most of 
the reasons for her escape, every argument that 
could justify her action, she had given me, 
except one ; and it was probably that " one " 
reason that had most influenced her. 

In due time probably she would tell me all, 
but if she did not, nothing I could do or say 
would make her, for Turkish women will not be 
cross-examined. One of them, when asked one 
day in a Western drawing-room " how many 
wives has your father ? " answered, without hesi- 
tation, " as many as your husband, Madame." 

49 -^ 



50 BEWILDERING EUROPE 

Zeyneb had once told me that I succeeded in 
guessing so much the truth of what could not be 
put into words. She had on one occasion said 
" we never see our husbands until we are mar- 
ried," and a little later " sometimes the being 
whose existence we have to share inspires us 
with a horror that can never be overcome." 
Putting these two statements together, I was 
able to draw my own conclusions as to the 
" one " reason. . . . Poor little Zeyneb ! 

It seemed to me from the end of her letter, 
that Zeyneb would have been grateful had I 
said that I approved of her action in leaving 
her own country. To have told her the contrary 
would not have helped matters in the least, 
and sooner or later she was sure to find out her 
mistake for herself. 

And who that noticed her enthusiasm for all 
she saw would have dreamt of the tragedy that 
was in her life ? The innocent delight she had 
when riding on the top of a bus, and her jubila- 
tion at discovering an Egyptian Princess in- 
dulging in the same form of amusement ! 

Zeyneb told me that economy was a word for 
which there was no equivalent in the Turkish 
language, so how could she be expected to 
practise an art which did not exist in her country ? 



BEWILDERING EUROPE 51 

It was from her I had learnt the habit of answer- 
ing her letters by telegram, and the result had 
been satisfactory. " Eagerly waiting for another 
letter," I wired her. The following letter 
arrived : 

FONTAINEBLEAIT, Oct. 1906. 

A few days after our arrival began in earnest 
a new experience for us. The " demands " for 
interviews from journalists — every post brought 
a letter. Many reporters, it is true, called with- 
out even asking permission ; wanted to know our 
impressions of West Europe after eight days ; the 
reasons why we had left Turkey; and other 
questions still more ignorant and extraordinary 
about harem life. 

When, however, we had conquered the absurd 
Oriental habit of being polite, we changed our 
address, and called ourselves by Servian names. 

What an extraordinary lack of intelligence, it 
seemed, to suppose that in a few phrases could 
be related the history of the Turkish woman's 
evolution ; and the psychology of a state of 
mind which forces such and such a decision 
explained. How would it have been possible 
to give the one thousand and one private reasons 
connected with our action ! And what would 



52 BEWILDERING EUROPE 

be the use of explaining all this to persons one 
hoped never to see again — persons by whom 
you are treated as a spectacle, a living spectacle, 
whose adventures will be retailed in a certain 
lady's boudoir to make her " five o'clock " less 
dull? 

" What made you think of running away 
from Turkey ? " asked one of these press de- 
tectives. He might as well have been saying 
to me, " You had on a blue dress the last time 
I saw you, why are you not wearing it 
to-day ? " 

;t Weren't you sorry to leave your parents ? " 
asked another. Did he suppose because we 
were Turks that we had hearts of stone. How 
could anyone, a complete stranger too, dare to 
ask such a question ? And yet, angry as I was, 
this indiscretion brought tears to my eyes, as 
it always does when I think of that good-bye. 

" Good night, little girl," said my father, on 
the eve of our departure. " Don't be so long in 
coming to dine with us again. Promise that you 
will come one day next week." 

I almost staggered. " I'll try," I answered. 
Every minute I felt that I must fling myself in 
his arms and tell him what I intended to do, 
but when I thought of our years and years of 



BEWILDERING EUROPE 53 

suffering, my mind was made up, and I kept 
back my tears. 

Do you see now, dear Englishwoman, why we 
appreciated your discreet interest in us, and how 
we looked forward to a friendship with you who 
have understood so well, that there can be 
tears behind eyes that smile, that a daughter's 
heart is not necessarily hard because she breaks 
away from the family circle, nor is one's love for 
the Fatherland any the less great because one 
has left it forever ? All this we feel you have 
understood, and again and again we thank you. — 
Your affectionate Zeyneb. 

FONTAINEBLEAU, Oct. 1906. 

You ask me to give you my first impression 
of France (wrote Zeyneb), but it is not so 
much an impression of France, as the impres- 
sion of being free, that I am going to write. 
What I would like to describe to you is the 
sensation of intense joy I felt as I stood for the 
first time before a window wide open that had 
neither lattice-work nor iron bars. 

It was at Nice. We had just arrived from 
our terrible journey. We had gone from hotel 
to hotel, but no one would give us shelter even 
for a few hours. Was that Christian charity, to 



54 BEWILDERING EUROPE 

refuse a room because I was thought to be 
dying ? I cannot understand this sentiment. 
A friend explained that a death in an hotel 
would keep other people away. Why should 
the Christians be so frightened of death ? 

I was too ill at the moment to take in our 
awful situation, and quite indifferent to the 
prospect of dying on the street. Useless it 
was, however, our going to any more hotels ; it 
was waste of time and waste of breath, and I 
had none of either to spare. No one advised 
us, and no one seemed to care to help us, until, 
by the merest chance, my sister remembered our 
friends in Belgrade had given us a doctor's 
address. We determined to find him if we 
possibly could. In half an hour's time we found 
our doctor, who sent us at once to a sanatorium. 
There they could not say, " You are too ill to 
come in," seeing illness was a qualification for 
admittance. But I shall not linger on those 
first moments in Europe : they were sad beyond 
words. 

It must have been early when I awoke the 
next morning, to find the sun forcing its way 
through the white curtains, and flooding the whole 
room with gold. Ill as I was, the scene was so 
beautiful that I got out of bed and opened wide 



BEWILDERING EUROPE 55 

the window, and what was my surprise to find 
that there was no lattice-work between me and 
the blue sky, and the orange trees, and the hills 
of Nice covered with cypress and olives ? The 
sanatorium garden was just one mass of flowers, 
and their sweet perfume filled the room. With 
my eyes I drank in the scene before me, the 
hills, and the sea, and the sky that never seemed 
to end. 

A short while after, my sister came in. She 
also from her window had been watching at the 
same time as I. But no explanation was neces- 
sary. For the first time in our lives we could 
look freely into space — no veil, no iron bars. It 
was worth the price we had paid, just to have 
the joy of being before that open window. I 
sign myself in Turkish terms of affection. — 
Your carnation and your mouse, 

Zeyneb. 



CHAPTER IV 

SCULPTURE'S FORBIDDEN JOY 



CHAPTER IV 

SCULPTURE'S FORBIDDEN JOY- 
M. RODIN AT HOME 

ZEYNEB and Melek left Fontainebleau and 
travelled to Switzerland by short stages ; their 
first halting-place was Paris. 

They stayed for a week in the gay capital, 
and during that time Melek and I visited some 
of the principal churches and monuments. 

" Sight-seeing " was what the Hanoums x then 
called " freedom." To them it meant being out 
of the cage; tasting those pleasures which for 
so many years had been forbidden. Their 
lesson was yet to be learnt. 

We went one afternoon to see M. Rodin. 
Rising, summer and winter, at a very early hour, 
the sculptor had finished the greater part of his 
work for the day when we arrived ; the model 
was resting, and he was talking with the students, 
who had come to discuss their difficulties with 
him. 

1 Hanoum= Turkish lady. 

59 



60 FORBIDDEN JOY 

To me this opportunity given to young talent 
of actually seeing a master at work was such 
a happy idea, I made the remark to M. Rodin. 

" If only those who succeed," he said, " be 
it in the difficult accomplishment of their daily 
task, or in the pursuit of some glorious end, had 
the courage to speak of their continual efforts, 
their struggles, and their suffering, what a 
glorious lesson in energy it would be for those 
who were striving for a place amongst the 
workers. 

" Those who have arrived should say to those 
who are starting : At each corner, there is suffer- 
ing ; at each turning some fresh struggle begins, 
and there is sorrow all the time. We who have 
conquered have passed by that road, you can 
go no other way. 

" But when once they have got to their 
destination, the successful men are silent. And 
they who are still on the way get tired of the 
daily toil, knowing not that they who have 
arrived, have had the very same experience." 

Many beautiful works attracted our attention 
that afternoon, the most striking being Mary 
Magdalene, in repentant anguish at the feet of 
her Master, Jesus ; the Prodigal Son with his 
hands clasped in useless regret towards a wasted 




Les Deseschantees 

From a sketch by Auguste Rodin. 



FORBIDDEN JOY 61 

and ill-spent life. Then there was a nude (I 
forget the name by which she will be immor- 
talised), her wonderful arms in a movement of 
supplication, so grand, that the Eastern woman 
and I together stretched out our hands towards 
it in appreciation. 

The sculptor saw our movement, understood 
and thanked us ; a few moments later, conscious 
of our action, we blushed. What had we done ? 

I, the Scotch puritan, had actually admired 
one of those beautiful nudes before which we, 
as children, shut our eyes. But the Oriental ? 

" In my country these marble figures are not 
seen," she explained, " * the face and form created 
by God must not be copied by man,' said our 
Prophet, and for centuries all good Moslems 
have obeyed this command." 

" Do you know the legend of the Prophet's 
son-in-law Osman ? " she said. 

" No," I answered, " please tell me." 

" One day, long, long ago," related Melek, 
" when the followers of Christ had left their 
church, Osman entered and broke all the sacred 
images except one. Then when he had finished 
his work of destruction, he placed his axe at the 
foot of the figure he had left intact. 

" The next day, the Christians discovering 



62 FORBIDDEN JOY 

what had happened, tried to find the guilty- 
person. Osman's air of calm triumph betrayed 
him. 

" ' What have you done ? ' they cried, rush- 
ing towards him. 

" ' Nothing,' he answered, 6 1 am innocent ; it 
is your Divinity who has destroyed everything. 9 

" ' Our Divinity cannot move.' 

" ' If your Divinity is lifeless,' answered 
Osman, ' why do you pray to a God of stone ? ' * 

" In the Meandre valley in Asia," went on 
Melek, " the sculptured heads on the tombs are 
cursed. At Ephesus and Herapolis the Turco- 
mans turn away in horror from the faces that 
are engraven in marble ; and never are to be 
seen these Western pictures in stone, and 
statues erected to the immortal memory of 
heroes." 

The two Hanoums left for Switzerland. 

1 The answer to such an observation is obvious, but I 
prefer to present the Hanoum's anecdote as she gave it. — G.E. 



CHAPTER V 

THE ALPS AND ARTIFICIALITY 



CHAPTER V 

THE ALPS AND ARTIFICIALITY 

Territet, Dec. 1906. 

I WONDER if you know what life is like in a 
big caravanserai on the shores of Lake Leman 
in December. This hotel is filled from the 
ground to the sixth floor, and from east to west 
with people of all ages, who have a horror of 
being where they ought to be — that is to say, in 
their own homes — and who have come to the 
Swiss mountains with but one idea — that of 
enjoying themselves. What can be the matter 
with their homes, that they are all so anxious 
to get away ? 

I have been more than a month in this place, 
and cannot get used to it. After the calm of 
the Forest of Fontainebleau and the quiet little 
house where, for the first time, we tasted the joys 
of real rest, this existence seems to me strange 
and even unpleasant. Indeed, it makes me tired 
even to think of the life these people lead and 
their expense of muscular force to no purpose. 

65 E 



66 THE ALPS AND 

But the doctor wished me to come here, and 
I, who long above everything else to be strong, 
am hoping the pure air will cure me. 

On the terrace which overlooks the lake I 
usually take my walks, but when I have taken 
about a hundred steps I have to sit down and 
rest. Certainly I would be no Alpinist. 

One thing to which I never seem to accustom 
myself is my hat. It is always falling off. 
Sometimes, too, I forget that I am wearing a hat 
and lean back in my chair ; and what an absurd 
fashion — to lunch in a hat ! Still, hats seem 
to play a very important role in Western life. 
Guess how many I possess at present — twenty. 

I cannot tell whom I have to thank, since the 
parcels come anonymously, but several kind 
friends, hearing of our escape, have had the 
thoughtfulness and the same original idea of 
providing us with hats. Hardly a day passes 
but someone sends us a hat; it is curious, but 
charming all the same. Do they think we are 
too shy to order hats for ourselves, and are still 
wandering about Switzerland in our tcharchafs ? x 

Every morning the people here row on the 

1 Tcharchafs = cloak and veil worn by Turkish women 
when walking out of doors. 



ARTIFICIALITY 67 

lake, or play tennis — tennis being one of their 
favourite forms of amusement. I watch them 
with interest, yet even were I able I should 
not indulge in this unfeminine sport. 

Women rush about the court, from left to 
right, up and down, forwards and backwards. 
Their hair is all out of curl, often it comes down ; 
and they wear unbecoming flat shoes and men's 
shirts and collars and ties. 

The ball comes scarcely over the net, a woman 
rushes forward, her leg is bared to the sight of 
all ; by almost throwing herself on the ground, 
she hits it back over the net, and then her 
favourite man (not her husband, I may mention), 
with whom she waltzes and rows and climbs, 
chooses this moment to take a snapshot of her 
most hideous attitude. What an unpleasant idea 
to think a man should possess such a souvenir ! 

And yet after tennis these people do not rest — 
on they go, walking and climbing ; and what is 
the use of it all ? — they only come back and 
eat four persons' share of lunch. 

At meal-time, the conversation is tennis and 
climbing, and climbing and tennis ; and again I 
say, I cannot understand why they employ all 
this muscular force to no higher end than to 
give themselves an unnatural appetite. 



68 THE ALPS AND 

A friend of my father's, who is staying here, 
tells me the wonderful climbing he has accom- 
plished. He explains to me that he has faced 
death over and over again, and only by the 
extraordinary pluck of his guide has his life 
been spared. 

" And did you at last reach your friend ? " 
I asked. 

" What friend ? " 

" Was it not to rescue some friend that you 
faced death ? " 

" No," he said, " for pleasure." 

" For pleasure," I repeated, and he burst out 
laughing. 

He spoke of this as if it were something of 
which to be proud, " and his oft -repeated en- 
counters with death," he said, " only whetted 
his appetite for more." Was life then of so 
little value to this man that he could risk it so 
easily ? 

Naturally in trying to explain this curious 
existence I compare it with our life in the 
harem, and the more I think the more am I 
astonished. What I should like to ask these 
people, if I dared, is, are they really satisfied 
with their lot, or are they only pretending to be 



ARTIFICIALITY 69 

happy, as we in Turkey pretended to be happy ? 
Are they not tired of flirting and enjoying them- 
selves so uselessly ? 

We in Turkey used to envy the women of the 
West. We, who were denied the rights of taking 
part in charitable works, imagined that the 
European women not only dared to think, but 
carry their schemes into action for the better- 
ment of their fellow-creatures. 

But are these women here an exception ? 
Do they think, or do they not ? I wonder 
myself whether they have not found life so 
empty that they are endeavouring to crush 
out their better selves by using up their physical 
energy. How is it possible, I ask myself, that, 
after all this exercise, they have strength enough 
to dance till midnight. Life to me at present 
is all out of focus ; in time perhaps I shall see it 
in its proper proportions. 

We go down sometimes to see the dancing. 
Since I have been here, I perfectly understand 
why you never find time to go to balls, if dancing 
in your country is anything like it is here. When 
we were children of twelve, before we were 
veiled, we were invited to dances given in 
Constantinople. I have danced with young 



70 THE ALPS AND 

attaches at the British Embassy, yet, child 
though I was, I saw nothing clever in their 
performance. 

All the people at this dance are grown up, 
not one is under twenty — some are old gentle- 
men of fifty — yet they romp like children all 
through the evening till deep into the night, 
using up their energy and killing time, as if 
their life depended on the rapidity with which 
they hopped round the room without sitting 
down or feeling ill. 

The waltz is to my mind senseless enough, 
but the lancers ? " The ring of roses " the little 
English girls play is more dignified. 

It seems to me that women must forfeit a 
little of the respect that men owe to them when 
they have romped with them at lancers. 

To-night, I have found out, dancing here is 
after all an excuse for flirting. In a very short 
while couples who were quite unacquainted 
with one another become very intimate. " Oh ! 
I could not wish for a better death than to die 
waltzing," I heard one young woman say to her 
partner. His wishes were the same. Surely 
the air of Switzerland does not engender am- 
bition ! 

One gentleman came and asked me if I could 




A Turkish Dancer 




A Turkish Lady dressed as a Greek Dancer 

Turkish women spend much of their time dressing up. 



ARTIFICIALITY 71 

dance. I said, " Yes, I can dance" laying par- 
ticular emphasis on the word dance. But I do 
not think he understood. 

" Will you dance with me ? " he asked. 

" No," I replied, " I dance by myself." He 
stared at me as if I were mad — probably he took 
me for a professional dancer. 

When you come to stay with us at Nice, after 
we have had enough of this pure air to justify 
our leaving Switzerland and these commonplace 
and unsympathetic people, and we are in our 
own villa again and free to do as we will, then 
we will teach you Turkish dances, and you will 
no longer be surprised at my criticisms. 

Dancing with us is a fine art. In the Imperial 
Harem more attention is paid to the teaching 
of dancing than to any other learning. When 
the Sultan is worn out with cares of state and 
the thousand and one other worries for which 
his autocratic rule is responsible, his dancing 
girls are called into his presence, and there with 
veils and graceful movements they soothe his 
tired nerves till he almost forgets the atrocities 
which have been committed in his name. 

A Turkish woman who dances well is seen to 
very great advantage ; a dancing woman may 



72 THE ALPS 

become a favourite, a Sultana, a Sultan's mother, 
the queen of the Imperial Harem. 

I can assure you a Western woman is not 
seen at her best when she dances the lancers. 
— Your affectionate Zeyneb. 



CHAPTER VI 

FREEDOM'S DOUBTFUL ENCHANTMENT 



CHAPTER VI 

FREEDOM'S DOUBTFUL ENCHANTMENT 

Territet, Dec. 1906. 
I AM conservative in my habits, as you will find 
out when you know me better, although Turkish 
women are generally supposed to be capricious 
and changeable. 

Every day you can picture me sitting on the 
same terrace, in the same chair, looking at the 
same reposeful Lake Leman and writing to the 
same sympathetic friends. 

The sea before me is so blue and silent and 
calm ! Does it know, I wonder, the despair 
which at times fills my soul ! or is its blue there 
to remind me of our home over yonder ! 

In the spring the Bosphorus had such sweet, 
sad tints. As children when we walked near 
its surface my little Turkish friends said to me, 
" Don't throw stones at the Bosphorus — you will 
hurt it." 

Lake Leman also has ships which destroy 
the limpid blue of its surface and remind me of 

75 



76 DOUBTFUL ENCHANTMENT 

those which passed under my lattice windows 
and sailed so far away that my thoughts could 
not follow them. 

Here I might almost imagine I was looking 
at the Bosphorus, and yet, is the reflection of 
snow-clad peaks what I ought to find in the 
blue sea away yonder ? Where are the domes 
and minarets of our mosques ? Is not this the 
hour when the Muezzins x lift up their voices, 
and solemnly call the faithful to prayer ? 

On such an autumn evening as this in Stam- 
boul, I should be walking in a quiet garden 
where chrysanthemums would be growing in 
profusion. The garden would be surrounded 
by high walls, giant trees would throw around 
us a damp and refreshing shade, and the red 
rays of the dying sun would find their way 
through the leaves, and my companions' white 
dresses would all be stained with its roseate 
hues. 

But suddenly we remember the sun is setting. 
To the cries of the frightened birds we hurry 
back quickly through the trees. How can a 

1 Muezzins = the religious teachers amongst the Moham- 
medans, whose duty it is five times a day to ascend the 
minaret and call the faithful followers of Mohammed to prayer 
from the four corners of the earth. 



DOUBTFUL ENCHANTMENT 77 

Turkish woman dare to be out after sunset ? . . . 
Ah ! I see it all again now — those garden walls, 
those knotted trees, those jealous lattice-work 
windows which give it all an impression of dis- 
tress ! and I am looking at it without a veil 
and eyes that are free ! 

Even as I write to you, young men and 
maidens pass and repass before me, and I 
wonder more than ever whether they are happy 
— yet what do they know of life and all its 
sorrows ; sorrow belongs to the Turks — they 
have bought its exclusive rights. 

In spite of our efforts not to have ourselves 
spoken about, the Sultan still interests himself 
in us. In all probability, he has had us re- 
ported as " dangerous revolutionists " whom 
the Swiss Government would do well to watch. 
And perhaps the Swiss authorities, having had 
so many disagreeable experiences of anarchists 
of late, are keeping their eyes on us ! Yet why 
should we care ? All our lives have we not been 
thus situated ? We ought to be used to it by this 
time. 

Around me I see people breathing in the pure 
air, going out and coming in, and no govern- 
ment watches their movements. Why should 



78 DOUBTFUL ENCHANTMENT 

Fate have chosen certain persons rather than 
others to place under such intolerable condi- 
tions ? Why should we have been born Turks 
rather than these free women who are here 
enjoying life ? I ask myself this question again 
and again, and all to no purpose ; it only makes 
me bitter. 

Do you know, I begin to regret that I ever 
came in contact with your Western education 
and culture ! But if I begin writing of Western 
culture, this letter will not be finished for weeks, 
and I want news of you very soon. — Au revoir, 
petite cherie, Zeyneb. 



Territet, Jan. 1907. 

Your letter of yesterday annoj^s me. You 
are " changing your pension," you say, " be- 
cause you are not free to come in to meals when 
you like." 

What an awful grievance ! If only you Eng- 
lish women knew how you are to be envied ! 
Come, follow me to Turkey, and I will make 
you thank Allah for your liberty. 

Ever since I can remember, I have had a 
passion for writing, but this is rather the excep- 
tion than the rule for a Turkish woman. At 



DOUBTFUL ENCHANTMENT 79 

one time of my life, I exchanged picture post- 
cards with unknown correspondents, who sent 
me, to a poste restante address, views of places 
and people I hoped some day to visit. 

This correspondence was for us the dream 
side of our existence. In times of unhappiness 
(extra unhappiness, for we were always unhappy), 
discouragement, and, above all, revolt, it was in 
this existence that we tried to find refuge. The 
idea that friends were thinking of us, however 
unknown they were, made us look upon life with 
a little more resignation — and you, my friend, 
who complain that " you are not free to have 
your meals when you like," should know that 
this correspondence had to be hidden with as much 
care, as if it had been a plot to kill the Imperial 
Majesty himself. 

When our correspondence was sent to us 
direct, it had to pass through the hands of three 
different persons before we had the pleasure of 
receiving it ourselves. All the letters we sent 
out and received were read not only by my 
father and his secretary, but by the officials 
of the Ottoman Post. 

One day, I remember, the daughter of an 
ex-American minister sent me a long account 



80 DOUBTFUL ENCHANTMENT 

of her sister's marriage, and she stopped short 
at the fourth page. I was just going to write 
to her for an explanation, when the remaining 
sheets were sent on to me by the police, whose 
duty it was to read the letters, and who had simply 
forgotten to put the sheets in with the others. 

You could never imagine the plotting and 
intriguing necessary to receive the most ordinary 
letters ; not even the simplest action could be 
done in a straightforward manner ; we had to 
perjure our souls by constantly pretending, in 
order to enjoy the most innocent pleasures — it 
mattered little to us, I do assure you, " whether 
we had our meals at the time we liked " or not. 

All around me little girls are playing. They 
wear their hair loose or in long plaits, their 
dresses are short. Up the steps they climb ; 
they play at hide-and-seek with their brothers 
and their brothers' friends. They laugh, they 
romp, their eyes are full of joy, and their com- 
plexions are fresh — surely this is the life children 
should lead ? 

I close my eyes, and I see the children of my 
own country who at their age are veiled. Their 
childhood has passed before they know it. 
They do not experience the delight of playing 



DOUBTFUL ENCHANTMENT 81 

in the sun, and when they go out they wear 
thick black veils which separate them from all 
the joys of youth. 

I was scarcely ten years old when I saw one 
of my little friends taking the veil, and from 
that day she could no longer play with us. 
That incident created such an impression on us 
that for days we could hardly speak. Poor 
little Suate ! No longer could she dance with 
us at the Christians' balls nor go to the circus. 
Her life had nothing more in common with 
ours, and we cried for her as if she had died. 

But we were happy not to be in her place, 
and I remember saying to my sister, " Well, at 
least I have two years before me ; perhaps in 
a short time our customs will have changed. 
What is the use of worrying so long before- 
hand ? " 

" I am still more certain to escape, for I have 
four years before me," she answered. 

Little Suate was veiled at a time when those 
delightful volumes of the Bibliotheque Rose were 
almost part of our lives. From them we learnt 
to believe that some good fairy must come, 
and with the touch of her magic wand all our 
destinies would be changed. 

But to-day, when I am no longer a child, I ask 

F 



82 DOUBTFUL ENCHANTMENT 

myself whether my great-great-grandchildren 
can ever free themselves from this hideous 
bondage. 

Melek is writing for you her impressions of 
taking the veil. They are more recent than 
mine. — Your affectionate Zeyneb. 



CHAPTER VII 

GOOD-BYE TO YOUTH -^TAKING 
THE VEIL 



CHAPTER VII 

GOOD-BYE TO YOUTH -TAKING 
THE VEIL 

Territet, Jan. 1907. 
I AM thinking of a sad spring morning of long 
ago. I was twelve years old, but the constant 
terror in which I had lived had increased my 
tendency towards uneasiness and melancholy. 
The life I was forced to lead had nothing in 
common with vny nature. Ever since I can 
remember, I had loved the bright light, open 
horizons, galloping on horses against the wind, 
and all my surroundings were calm and 
monotonous. 

As time went on, I put off every day the 
moment for wakening, because I had to open 
my eyes in the same room, and the same white 
muslin curtains were always there to greet me. 

How can I explain to you my jealousy at 
seeing how contentedly all the furniture lay 
in the soft light which filtered through the 
latticed windows of our harems ? A heavy 



86 GOOD-BYE TO YOUTH 

weight was pressing on my spirit ! How many 
times when the governess came into my room 
did she not find me in tears ! 

" What is the matter, my darling ? " she 
would ask, and under the influence of this un- 
expected tenderness I would sob without even 
knowing the cause of my sorrow. 

Then I dressed myself slowly, so that there 
should be less time to live. How was it, I 
wondered, that some people feared death ? 
Death would have been such a change — the only 
change to which a Turkish woman could look 
forward. 

In our house there was scarcely a sound ; 
hardly were the steps of the young Circassian 
slaves heard as they passed along the corridors. 

Our mother was kind but stern, and her 
beautiful face had an expression of calm resig- 
nation. She lived like a stranger amongst us, 
not being able to associate herself with either 
our thoughts or our ideals. 

The schoolroom where we worked the greater 
part of the day looked on to a garden thick with 
trees and perfumed with the early roses. Its 
furniture consisted of a big oak table and chairs, 
shelves full of books, a globe, and three busts 
in plaster of Paris, of Napoleon, Dante, and 



TAKING THE VEIL 87 

Mozart. What strange thoughts have those 
three men, so different and yet so interesting, 
not suggested to me ! What a curious influence 
they all three had on my child mind ! 

It was in this schoolroom, twice a week, that 
we studied the Koran ; but before the lesson 
began an old servant covered up the three great 
men in plaster. The Hodja l must not see these 
heathenish figures. 

When the Imam arrived, my sister and I 
went to the door to meet him, kissing his hand 
as a sign of respect. Then he used to pass his 
bony fingers over our hair, saying as a greeting, 
" May Allah protect you, my children." 

With the Hodja Effendi came into our school- 
room a perfume of incense of burnt henna and 
sandal-wood. His green tunic and turban, which 
showed he had visited the Holy Tomb at Mecca, 
made his beard so white and his eyes so pale, 
that he seemed like a person from another 
world — indeed he reminded me, not a little, of 
those Indian Fakirs, who live on prayers. 

From the moment he sat down at the table, 
my sorrows seemed to vanish for a while, and an 
atmosphere of calm and blessed peace took 
possession of my soul. 

1 Hodja = teacher of the Koran. 



88 GOOD-BYE TO YOUTH 

" Only God is God," he began. 

" And Mahomet is His Prophet," we responded, 
as we opened the Koran at the place he had 
chosen for the lesson. 

" Read, my child," he said. 

I took the book, and began to read the prayer, 
which is a rhythmed chant. The Imam read 
with me in a soft, low voice, and when the chapter 
was finished he murmured, " You read well, 
Neyr ; may Allah protect you." 

Then he questioned us on the prayers we had 
learnt, on the good we had to do and the evil 
to avoid, and his voice was so monotonous that 
each sentence sounded like a prayer. 

When we had finished, he asked, as he always 
did, to see our governess. I went to find her in 
the garden, and she came at once. 

As the Hodja could not speak English, he 
asked us to say to her, " You have a fine face. 
Allah loves the good and the kind and those who 
go the way they should go. He will be with 
you." And before he went away, taking with 
him the delightful perfume of incense, he shook 
the hand of the Englishwoman in his. 

Another day he came, and after the lesson 
he said to me, " Neyr, you are twelve years old ; 
you must be veiled. You can no longer have 




Turkish Lady in Tcharchaff. Outdoor Costume 

During the reign of Abdul Aziz (vide text) Turkish ladies wore the Yashmak in the 
street, now they wear a thick black veil through which they can see and are not 
supposed to be seen. The women must always wear gloves. 



TAKING THE VEIL 89 

your hair exposed and your face uncovered — 
you must be veiled. Your mother has not 
noticed you have grown a big girl, I therefore 
must. I teach you to love Allah, you are my 
spiritual child, and for that reason I must warn 
you of the danger henceforward of going out 
unveiled. Neyr, you must be veiled." 

I was not even listening to the Imam ! An 
awful agony had seized and numbed my soul ; 
the words which he had uttered resounded in 
my brain, and little by little sank into my un- 
derstanding — " Neyr, you must be veiled " — 
that is to say, to be forever cloistered like those 
who live around you ; to be a slave like your 
mother, and your cousins, and your elder sister ; 
to belong henceforth to the harem ; no longer 
to play in the garden unveiled ; nor ride Arabian 
ponies in the country ; to have a veil over your 
eyes, and your soul ; to be always silent, always 
forgotten, to be always and always a thing. 

" Neyr, you must be veiled," the old Hodja 
began again. 

I raised my head. " Yes, I know, Hodja 
Effendi, I shall be veiled, since it is necessary." 
Then I was silent. 

The old Imam went away, not understanding 
what had happened to me, and without my 



90 GOOD-BYE TO YOUTH 

having kissed his hand. I remained in the same 
place, my elbows on the table. I was alone. 
All around was deadly still. 

Suddenly, however, Miss M. opened the door ; 
her eyes were red. Gently shutting the door 
and coming towards me, she said : 

" Neyr, I have seen the Imam, and I under- 
stand that from to-morrow you must be 
veiled." 

I saw the pain stamped on her face, but I 
could say nothing. Already she had taken me 
in her arms and carried me into her room at 
the end of the corridor, murmuring all the 
while, " The brutes ! " 

Together we wept ; I, without unnecessary 
complaints, she without useless consolation. 

Once my sorrow had passed a little, I ques- 
tioned my governess. 

" You are English, are you not ? " 

" Yes, dear, I am English." 

" In England are the women veiled, and the 
children free ? " 

" The women and children are free." 

" Then I will go to England." 

" Silence, Neyr, silence." 

" Take me to England." 

" I cannot, Neyr," she answered. 



TAKING THE VEIL 91 

But all that day and all that night I dreamt 
of dear, free England, I longed to see. 

The country house where we lived was large, 
with big rooms, long corridors, and dark halls. 
Now and again carriages passed, bringing ex- 
cursionists to the neighbouring wood, and when 
we heard the wheels rumbling over the uneven 
road, we rushed to the latticed windows to see 
all we could. 

Sometimes we used to go with Miss M. to see 
Stamboul, which was on the opposite shore. 
Miss M. loved the town, and used to take us 
there as often as possible. Sometimes we used 
to ride with my brother in the country, and I 
loved to feel the wind blowing through my un- 
tidy hair, but all that would be over now. 
Sometimes my father would take me to see 
friends of his — foreigners they were — and the 
girls and boys played together, and I laughed 
and played with them. But I understood that 
I was only on the margin of their great life, 
that each day part of my right to existence 
would be taken from me, a veil would soon cover 
my face, and I would only be a Moslem woman, 
whose every aspiration and emotion would be 
trampled under foot. 



92 GOOD-BYE TO YOUTH 

That moment had come. 

We were to go out with mother that after- 
noon. On my bed in the monotonous room I 
disliked so much, a black mantle, a cape, and a 
veil were placed. 

Several persons had come to see me veiled 
for the first time. Awkwardly I placed the 
pleated skirt round my waist, the cape over my 
shoulders, and the veil over my face ; but, in 
order that the tears which were falling should 
not be seen, I did not lift it up again. 

" Neyr," asked mother, " are you ready ? " 

" Yes," I answered, and followed her with my 
head up in spite of this mourning. And from 
that day, from that moment, I had determined 
on revolt. 

Melek (N. Neyr-el-Nirsa). 



CHAPTER VIII 

A MISFIT EDUCATION 



CHAPTER VIII 

A MISFIT EDUCATION 

Territet, Jan. 1907. 
I BEGAN to write to you the other day of the 
influence which Western culture has had on the 
lives of Turkish women. 

If you only knew the disastrous consequences 
of that learning and the suffering for which it 
is responsible ! From complete ignorance, we 
were plunged into the most advanced culture ; 
there was no middle course, no preparatory 
school, and, indeed, what ought to have been 
accomplished in centuries we have done in 
three, and sometimes in two generations. 

When our grandmothers could sign their names 
and read the Koran, they were known as " cul- 
tured women " compared with those who had 
never learnt to read and write ; when a woman 
could dispense with the services of a " public 
letter- writer " she was looked upon as a learned 
woman in the town in which she lived, and her 

95 



96 A MISFIT EDUCATION 

time was fully occupied writing the correspond- 
ence of her neighbours. 

What I call the disastrous influence was the 
influence of the Second French Empire. 

One day, when I have time, I shall look up 
the papers which give a description of the 
Empress Eugenie's visit to the East. No doubt 
they will treat her journey as a simple exchange 
of courtesies between two Sovereigns. They 
may lay particular emphasis on the pageantry 
of her reception, but few women of that time 
were aware of the revolution that this visit had 
on the lives of the Turkish women. 

The Empress of the French was incontestably 
beautiful — but she was a woman, and the first 
impression which engraved itself on the under- 
standing of these poor Turkish captives, was, 
that their master, Abdul Aziz, was paying homage 
to a woman. 

The extraordinary beauty and charm of the 
Empress was enhanced by the most magnificent 
reception ever offered to a Sovereign, and even 
to-day, one figure stands out from all that 
wonderful Oriental pageant — a slight, lovely 
woman before whom a Sultan bowed in all his 
majesty. 



A MISFIT EDUCATION 97 

In honour of a woman, a jewelled palace in 
marble and gold was being built, and from the 
opposite side of the Bosphorus the captives 
watched it coming into existence with ever- 
increasing wonderment. 

For a woman, had been prepared rose and 
gold caiques all carpeted with purple velvet. 
From a magnificent little Arabian kiosk especi- 
ally built Ottoman troops from all corners of 
the Empire passed in review before a woman ; 
even her bath sandals were all studded with 
priceless gems ; no honour was too high, no 
luxury too great for this woman. The Sultanas 
could think of nothing else ; in the land of 
Islam great honour had been rendered to a 
woman. 

It was after the visit of the Empress Eugenie 
that the women of the palace and the wives of 
the high functionaries copied as nearly as they 
could the appearance of the beautiful Empress. 
They divided their hair in the middle, and spent 
hours in making little bunches of curls. High- 
heeled shoes replaced the coloured babouches ; 1 
they even adopted the hideous crinolines, and 
abandoned forever those charming Oriental 

1 Babouche = Turkish slippers without heels. 

G 



98 A MISFIT EDUCATION 

garments, the chalvar 1 and enturi, 2 which they 
considered symbols of servitude, but which no 
other fashion has been able to equal in beauty. 

As might be supposed, the middle class soon 
followed the example of the palace ladies and 
adopted Western costume. Then there was a 
craze for everything French. The most eccentric 
head-dresses and daring costumes were copied. 
To these Oriental women were given more jewels 
than liberty, more sensual love than pure affec- 
tion, and it mattered little, until they found 
out from reading the foreign papers that there 
was something else except the beauty of the body 
— the beauty of the soul. 

The more they read and learnt, the greater 
was their suffering. They read everything they 
could lay their hands on — history, religion, philo- 
sophy, poetry, and even risque books. They 
had an indigestion of reading, and no one was 
there to cure them. 

This desire for everything French lasted until 
our generation. No one seemed to understand 

1 Chalvar = Turkish pantaloons, far more graceful than the 
hideous harem skirts, which met with such scant success in 
this country. 

2 Enturi = the tunic, heavily embroidered, which almost 
covered the pantaloons, 



A MISFIT EDUCATION 99 

how harmful it was to exaggerate the atmos- 
phere of excitement in which we were living. 

With the craze for the education of the West, 
French governesses came to Constantinople in 
great numbers ; for it was soon known what high 
salaries the Turks paid, and how hospitable 
they were. 

If you had seen the list of books that these 
unfortunate Turkish girls read to get a know- 
ledge of French literature, I think you would 
agree with me they must have been endowed 
with double moral purity for the books not to 
have done them more harm. 

For nearly thirty years this dangerous ex- 
periment went on. No parents seemed to see 
the grave error of having in one's house a woman 
about whom they knew nothing, and who in a 
very short time could exert a very disastrous 
influence over a young life. It was only when 
catastrophe after catastrophe 1 had brought 

1 The ^Vestern governesses, in so many cases, took no 
interest in their pupils' reading, and allowed them to read 
everything they could lay their hands on. With their capacity 
for intrigue, they smuggled in principally French novels of 
the most harmful kind. Physical exercise being impossible 
to work off the evil effects of this harmful reading, the 
Turkish woman, discontented with her lot, saw only two 
ways of ending her unhappy existence — flight or suicide ; she 
generally preferred the latter method. 



100 A MISFIT EDUCATION 

this to their notice, they began to take any 
interest in their daughters' governesses, and 
occupy themselves a little more seriously about 
what they read. 

When I look back on our girlhood, I do feel 
bitterly towards these women, who had not the 
honesty to find out that we had souls. How 
they might have helped us if only they had 
cared ! How they might have discussed with us 
certain theories which we were trying to apply 
disastrously to our Eastern existence ! But 
they said to themselves, no doubt, Let us take 
advantage of the high salary, for we cannot 
stand this tedious existence too long. And the 
Turkish women went on reading anything that 
came within their reach. 

Could these Turkish girls be blamed for thus 
unknowingly destroying their own happiness ? 
What was there to do but read ? When all 
the recognised methods of enjoyment are re- 
moved, and when few visits are paid (and to go 
out every day is not considered ladylike), think 
what an enormous part of the day is still left 
unoccupied. 

In our grandmothers' days, the women used 
to assemble in the evening and make those 



A MISFIT EDUCATION 101 

beautiful embroideries which you admire so 
much. Others made their daughters' trousseaux, 
others told stories in the Arabian Nights style, 
and with that existence they were content. 
Not one of them wanted to read the fashionable 
French novels, nor had they any desire to play 
the piano. 

It was at the beginning of the reign of Abdul 
Hamid that this craze for Western culture was 
at its height. The terrible war, and the fall of 
the two beloved Sultans, woke the women from 
their dreams. Before the fact that their country 
was in danger, they understood their duty. 
From odalisques x they became mothers and 
wives determined to give their children the 
education they themselves had so badly needed. 

The new monarch then endowed the Ottoman 
Empire with schools for little girls. The pupils 
who applied themselves learnt very quickly, 
and soon they could favourably be compared 
with their sisters of the West. 

This was the first step that Turkish women 
had made towards their evolution. 

At the age of ten, when I began the study of 

1 Slaves. 



102 A MISFIT EDUCATION 

English, we were learning at the same time 
French, Arabic, and Persian, as well as Turkish. 
Not one of these languages is easy, but no one 
complained, and every educated Turkish girl 
had to undergo the same torture. 

What I disliked most bitterly in my school 
days was the awful regularity. My mother, 
rather the exception than the rule, found we 
must be always occupied. As a child of twelve, 
I sat almost whole days at the piano, and when 
I was exhausted, Mdlle. X. was told to give me 
needlework. Delighted to be rid of me, she gave 
me slippers to work for my father, whilst she 
wrote to " Mon cher Henri." She took no 
notice of me, as I stitched away, sighing all the 
while. In order to get finished quickly, I applied 
myself to my task ; the more I hurried, the more 
I was given to do, and in a few weeks the drawers 
were full of my work. Our education was 
overdone. 

So we Turkish women came to a period of our 
existence when it was useless to sigh for a mind 
that could content itself with the embroidery 
evenings of our grandmothers. These gather- 
ings, too, became less and less frequent, for 




"Silent Gossip" of a group of Turkish Women 

They will often spend an afternoon in silent communion. 




Turkish Ladies in their Garden with their Children's Governesses 

Little boys remain in the Harem until they are eight, after that they are 
counted as men. 



A» MISFIT EDUCATION 103 

women were not allowed out after dark, no 
matter what their age. 

Then it was, however, that, in spite of its 
being forbidden, I inaugurated a series of " white 
dinner parties " x for girls only. This created 
a scandal throughout the town. Our parents 
disliked the idea intensely, but we remained 
firm, and were happy to see our efforts crowned 
with success. Later, when we were married, 
we continued those dinners as long as we dared, 
and then it was we discussed what we could do 
for the future of women. 

And what delightful evenings we spent to- 
gether! Those soirees were moments when we 
could be ourselves, open our hearts to one 
another, and try to brighten for a little our 
lives. The fourteen friends I most loved in 
Turkey were all of the company of " white 
diners," and all those fourteen girls have played 
some special role in life. 

I am sending you a letter, written by a friend 
whom I shall never see again. 

1 They were called " white " because they were originally 
attended by unmarried women only, and they all wore white 
dresses. — G. E. 



104 A MISFIT EDUCATION 

" Since your departure," she wrote, " we 
have not been allowed to go a step out of doors, 
lest we should follow your example. We are 
living under a regime of terror which is worse 
than it has ever been before. 

" I want to implore you to work for us. Tell 
the whole world what we are suffering ; indeed 
it would be a consolation, much as it hurts our 
pride." 

I look around me and see all these happy 
children here in Switzerland without one care, 
and again I say to myself, how unjust is life. 
— Your affectionate friend, Zeyneb. 



CHAPTER IX 

"SMART WOMEN" THROUGH THE VEIL 



CHAPTER IX 

"SMART WOMEN" THROUGH THE VEIL 

IN answer to my query as to whether Caux 
had smart enough visitors to justify an editor 
sending there a special correspondent, I had the 
following letter from Zeyneb : 

Caux, Jan. 1907. 

The articles which I have written for you on 
the beauties of Switzerland will possibly not 
appeal to the British public. 

For a long time last night, when I returned 
to my room, I tried to make you understand 
the intense delight I had felt in watching the 
good-night kiss which the lovesick moon had 
given to the beautiful lake, before going away 
far into space. 

This moon scene reminds me more than ever 
of one of our magnificent moonlights on the 
Bosphorus, and I am sure if you had been with 
me on the Terrace you would have loved the 

107 



108 "SMART WOMEN" 

moonlit Bosphorus for its resemblance to Leman, 
and Leman for helping you to understand how 
wonderful is the Bosphorus. But the poetry of 
moonlight does not appeal evidently to the 
British soul, since they are clamouring for news 
of people who are " smart." 

I have always wondered at the eagerness with 
which the society ladies here seize the paper. 
Now I understand — it is to see whether their 
names are included amongst people " who are 
smart." What a morbid taste, to want to see 
one's name in a newspaper ! 

I could not tell you whether the people or 
the life at Caux would be considered smart. 
They certainly are extraordinary, and the life 
they lead seems to me to be a complete reversal 
of all prevailing customs. From early in the 
morning till late at night they toboggan and 
skate. Everything is arranged with a view to 
the practice of these two sports. I cannot tell 
you the disagreeable impression that the women 
produce on me, sitting astride of their little 
machines and coming down the slope with a 
giddy rapidity. Their hair is all out of order, 
their faces vivid scarlet, and their skirts, arranged 
like those of a Cambodgian dancer, are lacking 



THROUGH THE VEIL 109 

in grace. But this is not a competition for a 
beauty prize ; all that counts is to go more 
quickly down the course than the others, no 
matter whether you kill yourself in the attempt. 

That there are people in England who are 
interested in knowing who is staying at a Swiss 
Hotel, the guests they receive, and the clothes 
they wear, is an unpleasant discovery for me. 
I thought English people were more intelligent. 

One of the reasons for which we left Turkey 
was, that we could no longer bear the degrading 
supervision of the Sultan's spies. But is it not 
almost the same here ? Here, too, there are 
detectives of a kind ! Alas ! Alas ! there is no 
privacy inside or outside Turkey. 

The people who interest me most are not the 
smart ladies, but the Swiss themselves. They 
alone in all this cosmopolitan crowd know that 
the sun has flooded with its golden tints the 
wonderful panorama of their mountains, the 
lake stretches out in a mystery of mauve and 
rose, and they alone have time to bow in admira- 
tion to the Creator of Beauty and the great 
Poet of Nature. — Affectionately, 

Zeyneb, 



CHAPTER X 

THE TRUE DEMOCRACY 



CHAPTER X 

THE TRUE DEMOCRACY— THE IMPOSSIBILITY 
OF SNOBBERY IN TURKISH LIFE 

±HE two fugitives left Switzerland for Nice. 
Melek was in perfect health, and still delighted 
with her Western liberty. 

Zeyneb, although better, began more and 
more to see her new life lose its glamour. But 
it was too late — there was no going back. 

I wonder which of the two suffers more — the 
person who expects much and is disappointed ; 
or the person of whom much is expected and 
feels she has disappointed. It seemed to me so 
often, I could often read in Zeyneb's eyes, " Was 
it worth it ? " Was she like the woman of her 
own country, counting the cost when the debt 
had already been incurred. I, who thought I 
saw this, suffered in consequence. 

Perhaps, as elder sister and ringleader in the 
preparations for their flight, Zeyneb was feeling 
her responsibility. Would the younger sister, 

113 H 



114 THE TRUE DEMOCRACY 

when the glamour of freedom had passed, re- 
proach her for the step they had taken ? That 
was a question that had to be left to the uncer- 
tain answer of the Future. 

A little while after they were installed at 
Nice, Zeyneb resumed her correspondence with 
me. 

Nice, 15^ Feb. 1907. 

For a week now we have had the sun shining 
almost as in the East. After the mountains 
and the snow of Switzerland, how good it is to 
be here ! I just love to watch the blue sky, the 
flowers and the summer dresses ! And I am 
warm again for a little while. 

We are living at Cimiez, well up the hill, in a 
little villa surrounded by a big garden full of 
flowers and exotic plants and a few cypress 
trees ; the only sad note in our whole surround- 
ings, except for us its name, the Villa Selma, 
for curiously enough our villa has a Turkish 
name — the name of a friend for whom the sad- 
ness of life had been too great, and who is now 
sleeping under the shade of the cypress in a 
comfortable cemetery l in our own land. How 

1 It sounds strange to the Western mind to speak of a 
"comfortable cemetery,'' but the dead are very near to the 



THE TRUE DEMOCRACY 115 

strange that fate should have directed our steps 
to a villa that bears her name, and surrounded 
us with trees that remind us day and night of 
her past existence. 

Hardly had we arrived at Nice, when in a 
restaurant we met a lady friend from Turkey, 
a friend whom the Sultan, in a fit of madness, 
or shall I call it prudence, allowed to come to 
Nice with her husband and children for a change 
of air. Our departure, no doubt, has made this 
great despot think, and in order to prove to all 
his subjects how great was his generosity, he 
had allowed this woman to travel alone as she 
wished. 

But we did not waste time discussing the 
psychology of Hamid's character, we were only 
too delighted to see one another. How many 
things had we not to talk about ! how many 
impressions had we not in common ! If only a 
snapshot had been taken of us and sent to Con- 
stantinople what a very bad impression it would 
have made on our poor captive friends away 
yonder. How they would have envied us ! 

living Turks ; the cemetery is the Turkish woman's favourite 
walk, and the greatest care is taken of the last resting- 
place of the loved ones. — G. E. 



116 THE TRUE DEMOCRACY 

Imagine ! the next day we all three lunched 
together at Monte Carlo, and that without our 
friend's husband ! We were seated on the 
terrace overlooking the blue sea, and the new- 
comer was breathing in the " free air " for the 
first time, whilst we, old refugees of a year, were 
pleased to see her enthusiasm. 

" When I think," she said, " that only three 
of us are enjoying this liberty compared to the 
thousands of poor women who have not any 
idea of what they have been deprived, it makes 
me unhappy." 

But the weather was too fine for such sad 
thoughts. Near us a Hungarian band was play- 
ing, and it seemed so in harmony with the sur- 
roundings. Not one of the faces round us 
betrayed the least suspicion of sadness. Could 
they all be happy, these unknown people ? It 
really matters so little — we are happy as prisoners 
to whom liberty has been given, and it is at a 
moment like this that we appreciate it most. 

At dessert, after having discussed many ques- 
tions, we finally spoke of the dear country 
which only she of us three would see again, 
and now, a certain melancholy overshadows the 
table where a while ago we were so gay. 



THE TRUE DEMOCRACY 117 

The Orient is like a beautiful poem which is 
always sad, even its very joy is sadness. All 
Eastern stories end in tragedy. Even the land- 
scape which attracts by its beauty has its note 
of sorrow, and yet one of the many women 
writers who was introduced to us, and welcomed 
as our guest, said to me : "I never laughed any- 
where as I laughed in Constantinople." That 
was quite true, for I was witness of her delightful 
merriment, always caught from one of us ; for 
no one can laugh like a Turkish woman when 
she takes the trouble. 

The foundation of our character is joyous, 
persistently joyous, since neither the monotony 
of our existence, nor the tragedy of the Hamidian 
regime, nor the lamentable circumstances of our 
life has been able to utterly crush laughter 
out of life. There is no middle course in Turkey. 

But I told you that it was from studying the 
customs of Western Europe that I was beginning 
to better understand the land I had left. If the 
joys of freedom have been denied to Turkish 
women, how many worries have they been 
spared. Are not women to be sincerely pitied 
who make " Society " the aim and object of 
their existence ? No longer can they do what 



118 THE TRUE DEMOCRACY 

they feel they ought for fear of compromising 
a "social position." Is not the gaiety of their 
lives worse even than the monotony of ours ? 
Ofttimes they have to sacrifice a noble friend- 
ship to the higher demands of social exclusive - 
ness. How strange and narrow and insincere 
it all seems to a Turkish woman. 

I never made the acquaintance of the disease 
" snobbery " in my own land. Here, for the 
first time, I have an opportunity of studying 
its victims. There may be something wanting 
in my Turkish constitution to prevent my appre- 
ciating the rare delight of a visit from a great 
personage. Ambitious people I have often met 
— in what country do they not thrive ? There 
are many in Turkey, and that is only natural 
when it is remembered the very limited number 
of ways for individuality to express itself. But 
snobs ! How childish they are ! Can they 
really believe I am a more desirable person 
to have at a tea-table since I have been noticed 
by an ex-Empress ? Only by inflicting their 
society on people who obviously do not want 
them, and by " bluff " — another word which 
does not exist in the Turkish language — can 
they be invited at all. Not a single woman in 



THE TRUE DEMOCRACY 119 

the whole of Turkey would put so low an esti- 
mate on her own importance ! So snobbery 
would never get a foothold with us. 

You cannot know how this simple black veil, 
which covers our faces, can completely change 
the whole conditions of the life of a nation. 

What is there in common between you and us ? 

" The heart," you will say. 

But is the heart the same in the East as in 
the West ? And what a difference there is 
between our method of seeing things, even of 
great importance. Ambition with us does not 
seek the same ends ; pride with us is wounded 
by such a different class of actions ; and indi- 
viduality in the East seeks other gratifications 
than it does in the West. 

How would it be possible for " snobbery " to 
exist in a country where there is no society, 
and where the ideal of democracy is so admir- 
ably understood; where the poor do not envy 
the rich, the servant respects his master, and 
the humble do not crave for the position of 
Grand Vizier ? 

I said there were ambitious people in my 
country, yes ; but they are still more fatalists. 
If a man has been unsuccessful, he blames his 



120 THE TRUE DEMOCRACY 

" written destiny," which no earthly being can 
alter. Is not this resignation to the yoke of 
the tyrannical Sultan a proof of fatalism ? 
What other nation would, for thirty-one years, 
have put up with such a regime ? 

It is only since I have seen other Govern- 
ments and other peoples that I can fully realise 
the passionate fatalism of the Turks. 

Those " discontents," whom I knew, were the 
true " Believers," for at least they knew how 
to distinguish between belief and useless resig- 
nation. Their number, fortunately, grows every 
day. More and more impatiently am I waiting 
for the result of a Revolution intelligently 
arranged, the aim of which will be the Liberty 
of the Individual, and the uplifting of the race. 

And yet a revoltee though I was, I think I 
envied my grandmother's calm happiness. 

" My poor little girls," she used to say, " your 
young days are so much sadder than mine. At 
your age I didn't think of changing the face of 
the world, nor working for the betterment of 
the human race, still less for raising the status 
of women. Our mothers taught us the Koran, 
and we had confidence in its laws. If one of 



THE TRUE DEMOCRACY 121 

us had less happiness than another, we never 
thought of revolting ; ' it was written,' we said, 
and we had not the presumption to try to 
change our destiny." 

" Grandmother," I asked her, tc is it our fault 
if we are unhappy ? We have read so many 
books which have shown us the ugly side of our 
life in comparison with the lives of the women 
of the West. We are young. We long for just 
a little joy ; and, grandmother," I added slowly, 
and with emphasis, " we want to be free, to find 
it ourselves." 

Did she understand ? That I cannot tell, 
for she did not answer, but her eyes were fixed 
on us in unending sadness ; then suddenly she 
dropped them again on to her embroidery. 

In the autumn or in the spring our darling 
grandmother came to fetch us to stay with her 
in her lovely home at Smyrna. I must add, 
to point out to you another beautiful feature 
of our Turkish life, that this woman was not my 
father's own mother. She was my late grand- 
father's seventh and only living widow, but she 
treated all my grandfather's children with equal 
tenderness. Rarely is it otherwise in Turkey. 
She loved us, this dear, dear woman, quite as 



122 THE TRUE DEMOCRACY 

much, if not more, than the children of her own 
daughter, and we never supposed till we came 
to the West there was anything exceptional in 
this attachment. Just as a woman loves her 
own children, she cares for the children of a 
former wife, confident, when her time comes to 
die, her children will be well treated by her 
successor. 

In our grandmother's home life was just a 
lovely long dream ; a life of peace unceasing — 
the life of a Turkish woman before the regime 
of Hamid and thoughts of Revolution haunted 
our existence. Every evening young women 
and girls brought musical instruments. First, 
there was singing, then one after another we 
danced, and the one who danced the best was 
applauded and made to dance until she almost 
fell exhausted. 

Towards midnight we supped by the light 
of the moon, either in our garden or at friends' 
houses ; and we talked and danced and laughed, 
all so happy in one another's society, and none 
of us remembering we were subjects of a Mighty 
Tyrant, who, had we been at Constantinople, 
would have stopped those festivities by order 
of the police. 



THE TRUE DEMOCRACY 123 

The gatherings in this house, covered with 
wisteria and roses, and surrounded by an old- 
world garden, where flowers were allowed to 
grow with a liberty of which we were jealous, 
were moments of joy indescribable. It was 
good for us to be in a garden not trimmed and 
pruned and spoilt as are the gardens of the 
West, but whose greatest charm is that it can 
be its own dear natural self ; to live in peace 
when the meaning of terror had been learnt, 
and comparative freedom when we had known 
captivity. 

If ever you have a chance find out for your- 
self the difference between the harems in the 
town and those of the country, then I know 
you will understand the few really happy 
moments of my life. — Your affectionate friend 

Zeyneb. 



CHAPTER XI 

A COUNTRY PICTURE 



CHAPTER XI 

A COUNTRY PICTURE 

SOMETIMES in the summer afternoons, in 
large parties, and in big springless waggons, 
we drove to the olive woods or the vineyards 
near the seashore. In spite of our veils, we just 
revelled in the beauty of the sky and the scenery 
all round. Sometimes we spent all day in the 
country, lunching on the grass, and playing like 
children, happy, though not free. Then we 
went for excursions — wonderful excursions to 
the ruins of Ephesus and Hierapolis and Par- 
ganu. Those women who had learnt Ancient 
History explained the ruins to the others, and 
all that mass of crumbling stones took life and 
breath for us captives. 

Many times, too, we stayed with the country 
people, who divided up their rooms for us, and 
we lived their life for a time. Those were the 
moments when I learnt to know and appreciate 
our fine, trustworthy, primitive Turks. With 

127 



128 A COUNTRY PICTURE 

what kindness they took care of us, paying 
particular attention to our beds, our meals, 
our horses, even our attendant eunuchs ! Whole 
families put themselves at our disposal, and very 
often they would not let us pay for anything 
we had had during our stay. In no country 
in the world, I am sure, could such hospitality 
and such cordial generosity be found, being as 
we were to them perfect strangers. 

One day at Gondjeli, after having visited 
the ruins of Taacheer, we lost the last train 
home. One of our attendants, however, called 
on the Imam, who was known throughout the 
village for his kindness. He and his wife, a 
delightful woman whom I shall never forget, 
not only gave us food and lodging for the night, 
but the next day begged us to stay longer. 

We were five women and three attendants. 
The meals offered us were abundant ; the beds, 
simple mattresses thrown on the floor, were 
spotlessly clean, and ever so daintily arranged ; 
and the next morning, early, before we dressed, 
our baths were ready. When the moment of 
departure came mother wished to leave them 
something for all the trouble they had taken. 
But the old Imam answered : " My child, 



A COUNTRY PICTURE 129 

there are no poor in our village. Each man 
here has his own little bit of ground to till, and 
enough bread to eat. Why should he ask Allah 
for more ? " 

I have often thought of those words. Every 
time I used to look at the useless luxury of our 
Turkish households, the Imam's little modest 
dwelling and his kindly face rose up to reproach 
me. — Your affectionate Zeyneb. 



CHAPTER XII 

THE STAR FROM THE WEST -THE 
EMPRESS EUGENIE 



CHAPTER XII 

THE STAR FROM THE WEST-THE 
EMPRESS EUGENIE 

Nice, Feb. 1907. 
WE have just returned from Cap Martin, where 
we have had the pleasure and honour of being 
introduced to the Empress Eugenie, the person 
of all persons I hoped to meet in Europe. 
Never will she know how much I have appreci- 
ated seeing her to-day, and all the charming 
past she called back to my memory. 

Imagine actually seeing in the flesh, the 
heroine of your grandmothers' stories ; the 
Empress whose beauty fascinated the East, 
the Empress whose clothes the women copied, 
whose language they learnt, the woman who 
had, though perhaps she may not know it, the 
greatest influence on the lives of Turkish women. 
It seemed to me as I looked at the ex-Empress, 
that I was back in Constantinople again, but 
the Constantinople that my grandmother had 

133 



134 THE STAR FROM THE WEST 

known, the Constantinople where the Sultan 
Abdul -Aziz reigned and the life of the Turkish 
women was one of independence compared to 
ours. 

The Empress remembered with great pleasure 
every detail of her visit to the East. She spoke of 
the persons she had known, and asked for news 
of them. Alas ! so many were dead, and others 
scattered to the four corners of the Empire ! 

She remembered the town, the Palaces, and 
the marble Beylerbei which had been built 
specially for her. So kindly, too, did she speak 
of the Sultan Aziz, saying how welcome he had 
made her, and how his people loved him. 

Was it possible without appearing unpatriotic 
to make her understand that the lovely Palace 
in which she had stayed, the Palace which had 
echoed with the sounds of Eastern music and 
dancing and singing, was now being put to a very 
different usage ? During Hamid's reign Palaces 
are not required for festivity, but captivity. 
Many unfortunate souls have only known 
Beylerbei as the stepping stone to Eternity ! 

I should have liked to remind the Empress, 
had I dared, of the impression her beauty had 
made on the women. 




Yashmak and Mantle (Feradjk) 



THE EMPRESS EUGENIE 135 

She is an old lady now, but she did not seem 
so to me. I was looking at the Empress my 
countrywomen had admired, the Empress for 
whom they had sacrificed their wonderful 
Eastern garments ; I saw the curls they had 
copied, the little high-heeled shoes she wore, and 
even the jewels she had liked best. 

" Are the women still as much veiled as when 
I was in Constantinople ? " asked the Empress ; 
and when I told her that a thick black veil 
had taken the place of the white Yachmack, 
she could hardly believe it. " What a pity ! " 
she said, " it was so pretty." 

The home in which I saw the Empress, re- 
minded me of one of our Turkish Islands. The 
sea was as blue and the sky as clear, and the 
sun, which forced her to change her place several 
times, was almost as intense. With an odour 
of pine wood was mixed a fragrant perfume of 
violets, and the more I looked at it, the more 
Oriental did the landscape become. 

Having spoken so much about the past and 
the people and the country we have left for ever, 
it seemed to me that all of us had given way to 
the inevitable Oriental sadness, yet we fought 
against it, for there were other visitors there. 



136 THE STAR FROM THE WEST 

I shall always regret not having had the 
opportunity of seeing the Empress alone ; it 
seemed to me that so much of what I might have 
told her had been left unsaid, and I know she 
would have been so glad to listen. — Your 
affectionate Zeyneb. j 



CHAPTER XIII 

TURKISH HOSPITALITY-A REVOLUTION 
FOR CHILDREN 



CHAPTER XIII 

TURKISH HOSPITALITY-A REVOLUTION 
FOR CHILDREN 

Nice, March 1907. 
1 CAN assure you, I do not exaggerate our 
Oriental hospitality. Go to Turkey and you 
will see for yourself that everywhere you will 
be received like a Queen. Everyone will want 
to be honoured by your presence in their 
home. 

The most modest household has its rooms 
for the mussafirs or guests. In wealthy establish- 
ments, the guest is given the choicest furniture, 
the daintiest golden goblets and bon-bon dishes, 
the best and finest linen and embroideries, a 
little trousseau for her own use, and slaves in 
constant attendance. 

I never remember sitting down to a meal 
without guests being present. All our rooms 
for the mussafirs were rilled, and in this matter 
my family was by no means the exception ; 

139 



140 TURKISH HOSPITALITY 

everyone received with the same pleasure. 
In England, I believe, you do have guest-rooms, 
but here in France they do not understand the 
elements of hospitality. 

You cannot imagine how it shocked me when 
I first heard a French son paid his father for 
board, and that here in France for a meal re- 
ceived, a meal must be returned. Surely this 
is not the case in England ? 

Often have I tried to find a satisfactory ex- 
planation of this lack of hospitality in the 
French. I put it down first to the cost of living, 
then to the limited accommodation, then to the 
disobliging servants, but I have now come to 
the conclusion that it is one of their national 
characteristics, and it is useless to waste time 
trying to explain it. 

Let us know as soon as possible when you are 
coming. 

After the description I have given you of our 
life in Smyrna you will understand how sorry 
we were to return to Constantinople. Even the 
delight of again seeing our parents could not 
console us. As soon as we were back again 
began the same monotony and perpetual dread, 




Melek in Yashmak 



TURKISH HOSPITALITY 141 

and the Hamidian regime made life more and 
more impossible. 

The year that the Belgian anarchist tried to 
kill the Sultan Hamid, was certainly the worst 
I have ever spent. Even the Armenian Mas- 
sacres, which were amongst the most haunting 
and horrible souvenirs of our youth, could not 
be compared with what we had then to bear. 
Arrests went on wholesale ! Thousands were 
" suspect," questioned, tortured perhaps. And 
when the real culprit had declared his guilt 
before the whole tribunal and had proved that 
it was he, and he alone, who had thrown the 
bomb, the poor prisoners were not released. 

It was in the summer. Up till then in the 
country, a woman could go out in the evening, 
if she were accompanied, but this was at once 
prohibited ; every Turkish boat which was not 
a fishing boat was stopped ; in the streets all 
those who could not prove the reason for being 
out were arrested ; no longer were visits to the 
Embassies possible, no longer could the ladies 
from the Embassies come to see us ; no " white 
dinners," no meeting of friends. There were 
police stationed before the doors, and we dared 
not play the piano for fear of appearing too 



142 TURKISH HOSPITALITY 

gay, when our "Sovereign Lord's " life had been 
in danger. 

Of course no letters could be received from 
our Western friends. The foreign posts were 
searched through and through, and nearly all 
the movement of the daily life was at an end. 
One evening my sister and I went outside to 
look at the moonlit Bosphorus. Although accom- 
panied by a male relative, three faithful guardians 
of the safety of our beloved Monarch stepped 
forward and asked for explanations as to why 
we were gazing at the sea. Not wishing to 
reply, we were asked to follow them to the 
nearest police station. My sister and I went in, 
leaving our relative to explain matters, and I 
can assure you that was the last time we dared 
to study moon effects. Never, I think, more 
than that evening, was I so decided to leave 
our country, come what might ! Life was just 
one perpetual nightmare, and for a long time 
after, even now in security, I still dream of 
these days of terror. 

I remember full well what importance was 
given to the French 1st of May riots. When I 
myself saw one of the strikers throw a stone 
which nearly blinded a doctor, called in haste 



TURKISH HOSPITALITY 143 

to see a patient, and saw his motor stopped 
and broken to pieces and the chauffeur thrashed, 
I thought of the days of our Armenian massacres 
— the awful days of Hamidian carnage — and the 
1st of May riots seemed to me a Revolution 
arranged to amuse little children. — Your affec- 
tionate Zeyneb. 



CHAPTER XIV 

A STUDY IN CONTRASTS 



CHAPTER XIV 

A STUDY IN CONTRASTS 

Nice, March 1907. 
1HERE are habits, my dearest friend, which 
cannot be lost in the West any more than they 
can be acquired in the East. You know what a 
terrible task it is for a Turkish woman to write 
a letter — even a Turkish woman who pretends 
to be Western in many ways. Can you, who 
belong to a race which can quietly take a de- 
cision and act upon it, understand this fault of 
ours, which consists of always putting off till the 
morrow what should be done the same day ? 
Thanks to this laziness, we Turks are where we 
are to-day. Some people call it kismet ; you 
can find it in almost all our actions. Since we 
started, now a year ago, I have been expecting 
an answer to a letter sent the day after my 
arrival here. It will come ; Allah knows when, 
but it will come. 

But I am as bad as my friend, you will say. 

147 



148 A STUDY IN CONTRASTS 

Three weeks ago I began this letter to you, and 
it is not finished yet, for all I am doing is so 
strange and curious, I feel I must let you know 
all about it. 

It was at Monte Carlo that I first saw and 
heard the wonderful operas of Wagner. When 
I heard they were performing Rheingold, in spite 
of medical advice not to go into a theatre, I 
could not keep away. Since my childhood, I 
had longed to hear an orchestral interpretation 
of the works of this genius. I seemed to have 
a presentiment that it would be to me an incom- 
parable revelation, and I was not disappointed. 

Do you know what it is, to have loved music 
all your life and never to have an opportunity 
of hearing a first-class concert ? My father 
used to invite the distinguished women artistes, 
passing through Constantinople, to come to sing 
and play for us. He, too, was passionately fond 
of music. But what I longed above all to hear 
was a full orchestra, and Wagner ! So that, 
when I was actually at Monte Carlo listening 
to the entrancing work of this Master, it was as 
though I had been blind all my days and had 
at last received my sight. 

It was wonderful ! It was magnificent ! It 



A STUDY IN CONTRASTS 149 

moved my very soul ! Why should we regret 
having left our country when such masterpieces 
as this are yet to be heard ? 

I did not want to stir. I wanted to remain 
under the spell of that glorious music ! But 
the theatre authorities thought differently, and 
in a little while the beautiful performance of 
Rheingold became one of my most happy 
memories. 

The scene changes. From my first beautiful 
impression of music I came to look upon that 
most degrading spectacle of your Western 
civilisation — I mean gambling. I had never 
realised till now that collective robbery could 
be so shameful ! That a poor, unintelligent, 
characterless being can come to Monte Carlo, 
ruin himself and his family, and kill himself 
without anyone taking the trouble to pity him 
a little or have him treated like a sick man, is 
to me incomprehensible. When I told the lady 
and gentleman, who accompanied me, the im- 
pression that their gaming-tables had on me, 
they smiled ; indeed they made an effort not to 
laugh. 

I remained long enough to study that strange 



150 A STUDY IN CONTRASTS 

collection of heads round the table with their 
expressions all so different, but the most hideous 
which I have ever seen. 

I had received that day two new and very 
different impressions ; one the impression of 
the highest form of art and the other the im- 
pression of perhaps the saddest of all modern 
vices. 

The whole night through I was torn between 
these two impressions. Which would get the 
better of me ? I tried to hum little passages 
of Rheingold, and fix my attention on Wagner's 
opera and the joy it had been to me, but in 
spite of my efforts my thoughts wandered, and I 
was far away in Turkey. 

In our cloistered homes I had heard vague 
rumours of magic games, the players at which 
lost their all or made a colossal fortune accord- 
ing to the caprice of fate. But I did not pay 
much attention to this fairy tale. Now, how- 
ever, I have seen and believe, and a feeling of 
terrible anxiety comes over me whenever I 
think of the honest men of my own country, 
who are concentrating all their energies on the 
acquirement of Western civilisation. They will 
not accept Europeanism in moderate doses — 



A STUDY IN CONTRASTS 151 

they will drain the cup to the very dregs — this 
awful vice, as well as drunkenness and all your 
other weaknesses. 

In the course of time I fell asleep. I was 
back in Turkey enduring the horrors of the 
Hamidian regime. Rheingold was forgotten, 
and the azure of the Mediterranean Sea, the 
flowers, and the summer dresses. I went from 
scene to scene, one more awful than the other, 
but everywhere I went and to everything I saw 
were attached the diabolical faces I had seen at 
the Monte Carlo gaming-tables. — Your affec- 
tionate Zeyneb. 



CHAPTER XV 

DREAMS AND REALITIES 



CHAPTER XV 

DREAMS AND REALITIES 

Hendaye, July 1907. 

WHAT a relief ! What a heart-felt relief to 
leave Paris ! Paris with its noise and clamour 
and perpetual and useless movement ! Paris 
which is so different from what I expected ! 

We have had in Paris what you English people 
call a " season," and I shall require many months 
of complete rest, to get over the effects of that 
awful modern whirlwind. 

What an exhausting life ! What unnecessary 
labour ! And what a contrast to our calm harem 
existence away yonder. I think — yes, I almost 
think I have had enough of the West now, and 
want to return to the East, just to get back the 
old experience of calm. 

Picture to yourself the number of new faces 
we have seen in six weeks. What a collection 
of women — chattering, irritating, inquisitive, de- 
monstrative, and obliging women, who invite 

155 



156 DREAMS AND REALITIES 

you again and again, and when you do go to 
their receptions you get nothing for your trouble 
but crowding and pushing. 

All the men and women in Paris are of un- 
certain years. The pale girl who serves the tea 
might be of any age from fifteen to thirty, and 
the men with the well-trimmed fingers and 
timid manners are certainly not sixty, but they 
might be anything up to forty. 

But where are the few intellectuelles ? Lost 
between the lace and the teacups. They look 
almost ashamed of being seen there at all. 
They have real knowledge, and to meet them is 
like opening the chapter of a valuable Encyclo- 
pedia ; but hardly has one taken in the discovery, 
when one is pushed along to find the conclusion 
of the chapter somewhere in the crowd, if indeed 
it can be found. 

As you know, since our arrival from Nice we 
have not had one free evening. The Grandes 
Dames of France wanted to get a closer view 
of two Turkish women, and they have all been 
charming to us, especially the elder ones. 

Yes, charming is the word which best applies 
to all these society ladies, young and old, and is 
not to be charming the modern ideal of civilisa- 



DREAMS AND REALITIES 157 

tion ? These women are all physically the 
model of a big Paris dressmaker, and morally 
what society allows them to be — some one quite 
inoffensive. But it is not their fault that they 
have all been formed on the same pattern, and 
that those who have originality hide it under 
the same exterior as the others, fearful lest such 
a blemish should even be suspected ! 

But really, am I not a little pedantic ? How 
can I dare to come to such a conclusion after a 
visit which lasts barely a quarter of an hour ? 

At luncheon and dinner the favourite topics 
of conversation are the pieces played at the 
theatres or the newest books. Marriage, too, 
is always an interesting subject, and everyone 
seems eager to get married in spite of the thou- 
sand and one living examples there are to warn 
others of what it really is. This supreme trust 
in a benign Fate amuses me. Every bride-elect 
imagines it is she who will be the one exception 
to the general rule. Turkish women do not 
look forward to matrimony with the same 
confidence. 

Divorce has a morbid fascination for the men 
and women here : so have other people's mis- 
fortunes. And as soon as a man or woman is 



158 DREAMS AND REALITIES 

down — a woman particularly — everyone delights 
in giving his or her contribution to the moral 
kicking. 

I must own, too, I cannot become enthusiastic 
about Mdlle. Cecile Sorel's clothes nor the grace 
of a certain Russian dancer. What I would 
like to talk about would be some subject which 
could help us two peoples to understand each 
other better, but such subjects are carefully 
avoided as tiresome. 

Do you remember how anxious we were to 
hear Strauss's Salome discussed, and what it 
was in all this work which interested these 
Paris Society ladies ? — nothing more nor less 
than whether it was Trohohanova or Zambelli 
who was to dance the part of Salome. 

That was a disappointment for me ! All my 
life I looked forward to being in a town where 
music was given the place of honour, for in Con- 
stantinople, as you know, there is music for 
everyone except the Turkish woman. 

I had no particular desire to see the monu- 
ments of Paris, and now I have visited them 
my affection for them is only lukewarm. The 
Philistine I am ! I wish I dared tell the 
Parisians what I really thought of them and 



DREAMS AND REALITIES 159 

their beautiful Paris ! I had come above all 
things to educate myself in music, and now I 
find that they, with their unbounded oppor- 
tunities, have shamefully failed to avail them- 
selves of what to me, as a Turkish woman, is 
the great chance of a lifetime. 



A WALK WITH PIERRE LOTI IN A 
WESTERN CEMETERY 

Yesterday afternoon, accompanied by M. 
Pierre Loti, we visited the cemetery of Bir- 
reyatou. Its likeness to Turkey attracted us 
at once, for all that is Eastern has a peculiar 
fascination for Loti. There were the same 
cypress trees and plants that grow in our ceme- 
teries, and the tombs were cared for in a manner 
which is quite unusual in Western Europe. 

To go for a walk in a burial-ground I know 
is exclusively an Eastern form of amusement. 
But wait till you have seen our cemeteries and 
compared them with your own, then you will 
understand better this taste of ours. Oh, the 
impression of loneliness and horror I felt when 
I first saw a Western cemetery ! It was Pere 
La Chaise, the most important of them all. I 



160 DREAMS AND REALITIES 

went there to steal a leaf from the famous 
weeping willow on Musset's grave, and to my 
great surprise I found by the Master's tomb, 
amongst other tokens of respect, a Russian 
girl's visiting card with the corner turned down. 
But this was an exception. How you Western 
people neglect your dead ! 

I could not for a long time explain to myself 
this fear of death, but since I have seen here 
the painful scenes connected with it — the terror 
of Extreme Unction, 1 the visit of the relatives 
to the dead body, the funeral pomp, the hideous 
black decorations on the horses' heads, and last 
but not least the heart-rending mourning — I, 
too, am terrified. 

We, like the Buddhists, have no mourning. 
The Angel of Death takes our dear ones from 
us to a happier place, and night and morning 
we pray for them. The coffin is carried out on 
men's shoulders in the simplest manner possible, 
and the relatives in the afternoon take their 
embroidery and keep the dear ones company. 
It is as if they were being watched in their 
sleep, and they are very, very near. 

1 The editor is not responsible for the ideas expressed in 
this book, which are not necessarily her own. 



DREAMS AND REALITIES 161 

Yet here in the West what a difference ! I 
shudder at the thought that some day I might 
have to rest in one of these untidy waste heaps, 
and that idea has been preying on my mind so 
that I have actually written to my father and 
begged him, should I die in Paris, to have me 
taken home and buried in a Turkish cemetery. 



COMEDIE FRANQAISE 

Did I ever tell you of my visit to the Comedie 
Francaise ? Alas, alas ! again I have to 
chronicle a disappointment. I am trying to 
think what I pictured to myself I was going 
to see, and I am not at all clear about it. In 
my childish imagination I must have thought 
of something I will never see. 

Naturally the piece played was CEdipus Rex. 
Every time I am invited to the Comedie Fran- 
chise I see CEdipus Rex. It seems a particular 
favourite in Paris, I am sure I cannot tell 
why. 

The scenery was perfect, so were the costumes, 
but you cannot imagine how uncomfortable I 
was when I heard the actors, together or one 
after the other, screaming, moaning, hissing, and 



162 DREAMS AND REALITIES 

calling on the whole audience to witness a mis- 
fortune, which was only too obvious. 

All the actors were breathless, hoarse, ex- 
hausted — in sympathy I was exhausted too, and 
longed for the entr'acte. Then when at last a 
pause did come, I began to hope in the next 
scene a little calm would be established and the 
actors take their task a little more leisurely. 
But no ! they cried out louder still, threw them- 
selves about in torture, and gesticulated with 
twice as much violence. 

When I heard the voice of CEdipus it reminded 
me of the night watchers in my own country 
giving the fire alarm, and all those Turks who 
have heard it are of the same opinion. As I 
left the theatre tired out, I said to myself, 
"Surely it is not possible that this is the idea 
the Greeks had of Dramatic Art." 

What a difference to the theatre I had known 
in Turkey ! Sometimes our mothers organised 
excursions, and we were taken in long springless 
carts, dragged by oxen, to the field of Conche- 
Dili in the valley of Chalcedonia, where there 
was a kind of theatre, or caricature of a theatre, 
built of unpainted wood, which held about four 
hundred people. 



DREAMS AND REALITIES 163 

The troop was composed of Armenian men 
and women who had never been at the Paris 
Conservatoire, but who gave a fine interpreta- 
tion of the works of Dumas, Ohnet, Octave 
Feuillet, and Courteline. The stage was small 
and the scenery was far from perfect, but the 
Moslem women were delighted with this open- 
air theatre, although they had to sit in latticed 
boxes and the men occupied the best seats in 
the stalls. 

During the entr'acte, there was music and 
singing, the orchestra being composed of six 
persons who played upon stringed instruments. 
The conductor beat time on a big drum, and 
sometimes he sang songs of such intense sad- 
ness that we wondered almost whence they 
came. 

That was a dear little theatre, the theatre of 
my childhood. Primitive though it was, it was 
very near to me as I listened to the piercing 
cries of alarm sent out by QEdipus. Would 
they not, these rustic actors of the Chalcedonian 
valley, I wonder, have given a truer and better 
interpretation of the plays of Sophocles ? 



164 DREAMS AND REALITIES 

A BULL-FIGHT 

Guess, my dear, where I have been this after- 
noon. Guess, guess ! I, a Turkish woman, have 
been to a bull -fight ! There were many English 
people present. They are, I am told, the 
habitues of the place, and they come away, like 
the Spaniards, almost intoxicated by the spec- 
tacle. 

This is an excitement which does not in the 
least appeal to me. Surely one must be either 
prehistoric or decadent to get into this un- 
wholesome condition of the Spaniards. Is the 
sight of a bull which is being killed, and perhaps 
the death of a toreador, " such a delightful show," 
to quote the exact words of my American neigh- 
bour ? He shouted with frenzy whilst my sister 
and two Poles, unable to bear the sight of the 
horses' obtruding intestines, had to be led out 
of the place in an almost fainting condition. 

As for myself, I admit to having admired two 
things, the suppleness of the men and the 
brilliant appearance of the bull -ring. The 
women of course lent a picturesque note to 
the ensemble with their sparkling jewels, their 
faces radiant as those of the men, their dark 



DREAMS AND REALITIES 165 

eyes dancing with excitement, and their hand- 
some gowns and their graceful mantillas. But 
shall I ever forget the hideous sight of the poor 
horse staggering out of the ring, nor the roars 
of the wounded bull ? It was a spectacle awful to 
look upon. What a strange performance for a 
Turkish woman, used to the quiet of our harem 
life! 

Perhaps, however, for those to whom life has 
brought no emotion or sorrow, no joy or love, 
those who have never seen the wholesale butchery 
to which we, alas ! had almost become accus- 
tomed — perhaps to these people this horrible 
sight is a necessity. Spanish writers have told 
me they have done their best work after a bull- 
fight, and before taking any important step in 
life they needed this stimulus to carry them 
safely through. I can assure you, however, I 
heaved a sigh of relief when the performance 
was over, and not for untold gold would I ever 
go to see it again. 

After leaving the scene I have described to 
you, we followed the crowd to a little garden 
planted with trees, which is situated in the 
Calle Mayor and stretches along the side of the 
stream till it meets the Bidassoa. This is the 



166 DREAMS AND REALITIES 

spot where, on cool evenings, men and maidens 
meet to dance the Fandango. Basque men with 
red caps are seated in the middle to supply the 
music. On the sandy earth, which is the ball- 
room, the couples dance, in and out of the 
gnarled trees, to the rhythm of dance music, 
that is strange and passionate and at the same 
time almost languishing. 

The music played was more Arabian than 
anything I have yet heard in the West, but 
unfortunately the modern note too was creeping 
into these delightful measures. The Basques 
with their red caps, bronzed faces, white teeth, 
and fine manly figures, the women with their 
passionate and supple movements and deco- 
rated mantillas, and the almost antique frame 
of Fontarabia, proud of its past, hopeful for its 
future, were all so new and so different to me. 

But it is dark now, the dancing has ceased, 
the crowd has dispersed. How good it is to be 
out at this hour of the evening. I, who am 
free (or think I am), delight in the fact there 
are no Turkish policemen to question me as to 
what I am doing. 

But alas ! alas ! I spoke of my freedom a 



DREAMS AND REALITIES 167 

little too soon. Even in this quiet city can I 
not pass unobserved ? 

" Have you anything to declare ? " a Custom 
House officer asks me. 

" Yes," I replied, " my hatred of your Western 
'Customs,' and my delight at being alive." — 
Your affectionate friend, Zeyneb. 



CHAPTER XVI 

THE MOON OF RAMAZAN 



CHAPTER XVI 

THE MOON OF RAMAZAN 

Hendaye, August 1907. 
YOU ask me to describe the life a Turkish 
woman leads during Ramazan. 

The evenings of Ramazan are the only 
evenings of the year when she has the right 
to be out of doors ; the time when she seizes 
every opportunity of meeting her friends and 
arranging interesting soirees ; the time when she 
goes on foot or drives to the Mosques to hear 
the Imams explain the Word of the Prophet. 

Need I remind you, unlike the women of the 
lower and middle classes, who go out every 
evening, the more important the family to 
which a woman belongs, the more difficult is 
it for her to go out. 

It is for the evenings of Ramazan that most 
amusements are arranged, and our husbands, 
fathers, and brothers usually patronise the 
travelling circus, Turkish theatre, performances 

171 



172 THE MOON OF RAM AZAN 

of Karakheuz. 1 The women on their side have 
their dinners, Oriental dancing, and conversation 
which lasts deep into the night. 

Amongst my most delightful remembrances 
of Constantinople are the Ramazan visits to 
St. Sophia and the Chah-zade Mosque. From 
the height of a gallery reserved for women, 
which is separated from the rest of the church 
by a thick wooden lattice- work, hundreds of 
" Believers " are to be seen, seated on the 
ground round the Imam, who reads and preaches 
to them. All the oil lamps are lighted for the 
thirty days, and the incense burning in the 
silver brasiers rises with the prayers to Heaven. 
Not a voice is to be heard save that of the Imam 
(preacher), and the most wonderful impression of 
all is that created by the profound silence. 

And yet children are there — little ones asleep 
in their mother's arms, little girls in the women's 
gallery, whilst boys over eight are counted men, 
and sit beside their fathers on the ground, their 
little legs tucked under them. 

On returning home supper is ready for three 
o'clock, and an hour later the cannon announce 

1 Karakheuz = Turkish performance similar to our Punch 
and Judy Show. 




5 B -3 



THE MOON OF RAMAZAN 173 

the commencement of a fresh day of fasting. 
After a short prayer in one's own room, sleep 
takes possession of us until late the next day, 
sometimes until almost four o'clock, when every- 
one must be up and again ready for the firing of 
the cannon which gives permission to eat and 
drink and smoke. 

With us fasting 1 is more strict than it is in 
the West. From sunrise to sunset, no one 
would dare to touch a mouthful of food or even 
smoke. 

When we are lucky enough to have Ramazan 
during the winter months the fasting hours are 
shorter, but when it comes in the month of 
August " Believers " have to fast for sixteen 
hours, and the labourers suffer much in con- 
sequence. 

Imagine how long a soiree can be, when you 
begin dinner at half-past four ! What must we 
not think of to amuse our guests, for no one 
dines alone ! The Oriental hospitality demands 
that every evening friends should assemble, 
and acquaintances come without even letting 
you know. When people are known to be rich, 

1 Zeyneb has forgotten that as well as Fridays and various 
fast days, every Catholic receives the Holy Communion 
fasting. — G. E. 



174 THE MOON OF RAMAZAN 

the poor and complete strangers come to them 
to dinner. I remember being at one house which 
was filled to overflowing with women of all 
classes, most of whom had never before even 
seen the hostess. 

At the Palaces a special door is built, through 
which anyone who wants to dine can enter, 
and after the meal money is distributed. You 
can understand while this patriarchal system 
exists there is no reason for the poor to envy 
the rich. Turkey is the only country in Europe 
which in this respect lives according to Christ's 
teaching, but no doubt in the march of progress 
all these beautiful customs will disappear. 

I have often thought when in a Western 
drawing-room, where one stays a few minutes, 
and eats perhaps a sandwich, how different are 
our receptions in the East. We meet without 
being invited, talk till late in the night, and a 
proper supper is served. 

It surprises me, too, in the West to meet such 
poor linguists. In Turkey it is quite usual 
to hear discussions going on in five European 
languages without one foreigner being present. 

Wait till you have taken part in some of these 
Ramazan gatherings, and have seen what hospi- 



THE MOON OF RAMAZAN 175 

tality really is, then you will understand my rather 
slighting remarks about your Western society. 

I am constantly being asked how a Turkish 
woman amuses herself. I have a stock answer 
ready: "That depends on what you call amuse- 
ment." 

It sounds futile to have to remind my ques- 
tioners that amusement is a relative quality, 
and depends entirely on one's personal tastes. 
The Spaniards are mad with delight at the sight 
of a bull-fight — to me it was disgusting ; and yet, 
probably, were those bull-fights to take place in 
Turkey, I should enjoy them. We used to 
have in the country exhibitions of wrestling 
at which whole families were present. Travel- 
ling circuses were also a favourite amusement, 
but during the last years of Hamid's reign 
Turkish women have been forbidden the plea- 
sures of going to a travelling theatre and 
Karakheuz, the most appreciated of all the 
Eastern amusements. 

Tennis, croquet, and other games are im- 
possible for us, neither is rowing allowed : to 
have indulged in that sport was to expose my- 
self to the criticism of the whole capital. 



176 THE MOON OF RAMAZAN 

Although the people of the West are so fond 
of walking as a recreation, the pleasure that a 
Turkish woman can obtain from a walk is 
practically non-existent, and most of us would 
be insulted if asked, as I have been in Paris, to 
walk for two hours. 

We are fond of swimming, but how is this 
taste to be indulged when women are only 
allowed to swim in an enclosed place, surrounded 
by a high wall ? Surely the only charm of 
swimming is to be in the open sea. 

Those who are fond of music have either to 
go without, learn to play themselves, or take 
the terrible risk of disguising themselves as 
Europeans and go to a concert. 

Towards 1876 we began playing bezique, but 
that craze did not last long, and a short time 
afterwards cards were considered bad form. The 
Perotes, 1 however, still remain faithful to card- 
playing, and have more than one reason to 
prefer this pastime to all the others in which 
they might indulge. Unlike the Perotes, we 
Turkish women never played cards for money. 

i Inhabitants of Pera. There is uo love lost between 
these ladies and the Turkish women proper. I personally 
found many of them very charming. — G.E . 



THE MOON OF RAMAZAN 177 

You might think from my letters that travel- 
ling in the country was quite an ordinary event 
for women of our class : on the contrary, it is 
quite exceptional, and perhaps only ten families 
in all Turkey have travelled as we travelled in 
our own country. 

So you see a Turkish woman is not very ambi- 
tious for " amusement " as you Western people 
understand the word. When she is allowed to 
travel in foreign countries as she likes, I believe 
she will be more satisfied with her lot. 

All the Turks I have met since I came to 
Europe are of my opinion, but we shall see what 
will happen when their theories are put into 
practice. 

Since it has been my privilege to meet my 
countrymen I have found out what fine qualities 
they possess. Indeed it is wrong for custom to 
divide so markedly our nation into two sexes 
and to create such insuperable barriers between 
them. We shall never be strong until we are 
looked upon as one, and can mix freely together. 
The Turks have all the qualities necessary to 
make good husbands and fathers, and yet we 
have no opportunity of knowing even the men 
we marry until we are married. 

M 



178 THE MOON OF RAMAZAN 

How I wish that nine out of every ten of 
the books written on Turkey could be burned ! 
How unjustly the Turk has been criticised ! And 
what nonsense has been written about • the 
women ! I cannot imagine where the writers 
get their information from, or what class of 
women they visited. Every book I have read 
has been in some way unfair to the Turkish 
woman. Not one woman has really understood 
us ! Not one woman has credited us with the 
possession of a heart, a mind, or a soul. — Your 
affectionate friend, Zeyneb. 



The year of 1908 was a year of mourning for 
Zeyneb and Melek. For them began that bitter 
period, when a woman has the opportunity of 
judging independence at its true value, without 
a father and a substantial income as buffers 
between them and life. 

...... 

During that year, too, Melek married. 
Zeyneb remained alone. 



CHAPTER XVII 

AND IS THIS REALLY FREEDOM? 



CHAPTER XVII 

AND IS THIS REALLY FREEDOM ? 

London, Nov.-Dec. 1908. 
ABOUT a week ago, 1 ^whilst you were writing 
your first letter to me and speaking of the 
beautiful Eastern sun that was shining through 
your latticed window, what a different experi- 
ence was mine in London. I was walking by 
myself in the West End, when suddenly, the 
whole city was shrouded in one of those dense 
fogs to which you no doubt have become 
accustomed. I could not see the name of the 
streets nor the path at the opposite side, so I 
wandered on for a little while, only to discover 
that I had arrived back at the same place. 

There was no one to show me the way, and 
the English language that I had spoken from 

1 I received this letter in Constantinople, where I was 
staying in a Turkish harem, having travelled there in order 
to be present at the first debate in the newly-opened Turkish 
Parliament. — G. E. 

181 



182 IS THIS REALLY FREEDOM? 

infancy seemed of no use to me, since no one 
took any notice of my questions. 

I looked in vain for a policeman. Your 
London policemen are so amiable and clever. 
Whatever difficulty I have, they seem to be 
able to help me, and the most curious of all 
curious things is, they will not accept tips ! 
What wonderful men ! and what a difference 
from our policemen in Constantinople ! In Con- 
stantinople, I trembled almost at the sight of a 
policeman, but here I cannot imagine what I 
should do without them. 

However, after losing myself and getting back 
always to the same point, I finally struck out in a 
new direction, and walked on and on until, when 
I was least expecting it, I found that just by 
chance I was safe in front of my club. You 
can perhaps imagine my relief. It seemed to 
me as if I had escaped from some terrible danger, 
and I wonder more and more how you English 
people manage to find your way in one of these 
dense fogs. 

When I got into my club, I found your letter 
waiting me, and the Turkish post-mark cheered me 
just a little, and made me forget for a while the 
hideous black mantle in which London was wrapt. 



IS THIS REALLY FREEDOM ? 183 

On those evenings when I dine at " my club " 
(see how English I have become !) I eat alone, 
studying all the time the people I see around 
me. What a curious harem ! and what a 
difference from the one in which you are living 
at present. 

The first time I dined there I ordered the 
vegetarian dinner, expecting to have one of 
those delicious meals which you are enjoying 
(you lucky woman !), which consists of every- 
thing that is good. But alas ! the food in this 
harem has been a disappointment to me. Surely 
I must not accept this menu as a sample of what 
English food really is. 

On a little table all to myself, I was served 
with, first of all, rice which was cooked not as in 
Turkey, and as a second course I had carrots 
cooked in water ! After sprinkling on them 
quantities of salt and pepper I could not even 
then swallow them, so I asked for pickles, but 
as there were none, that dish was sent away 
almost untouched to join the first. Next I was 
served with a compote of pears without sugar, 
but that also did not come up to my expecta- 
tions. I ate up, however, all my bread and 
asked for more. Then the waiter kindly went 



184 IS THIS REALLY FREEDOM ? 

from table to table to see how much he could 
collect, brought just a handful, and informed 
me he really could not give me any more. But 
I told him it was not enough. " I want a very 
large piece," I said, so finally he decided to 
consult the butler, went to the kitchen, and 
brought me back a loaf to myself. 

All this while, the curious people around me 
had been staring at me devouring my loaf, but 
after a while they wearied of that exciting enter- 
tainment, their faces again resumed their usual 
calm expression, and they went on once more 
talking to one another. Sometimes, but not 
often, they almost got interested in their neigh- 
bour's remark, but as soon as the last words 
were uttered again they adopted a manner 
which seemed to me one of absolute indifference. 

As you know, I do not swear by everything 
Turkish, but you must now admit from experi- 
ence that when once the Danube is crossed the 
faces to be seen do express some emotion, either 
love or hate, contentment or disappointment, but 
not indifference. Since I left Belgrade, I have 
tried, almost in vain, to find in the Western faces 
the reflection of some personality, and so few 
examples have I found that their names would 




Zeyneb with a Black Face-veil thrown back 



IS THIS REALLY FREEDOM ? 185 

not certainly fill this page. Here in London 
I met with the same disappointment. Have 
these people really lost all interest in life ? 
They give me the impression that they all belong 
to the same family, so much alike are they in 
appearance and in facial expression. 

In the reading-room, where I spent my 
evening, I met those same people, who spoke in 
whispers, wrote letters, and read the daily papers. 
The silence of the room was restful, there was 
an atmosphere almost of peace, but it is not 
the peace which follows strife, it is the peace of 
apathy. Is this, then, what the Turkish women 
dream of becoming one day ? Is this their 
ideal of independence and liberty ? 

Were you to show my letter to one of my 
race she would think that I had a distinct 
aversion for progress, or that I felt obliged to 
be in opposition to everything in the countries 
where I was travelling. You know enough of 
my life, however, to know that this is not the 
case. What I do feel, though, is that a Ladies' 
Club is not a big enough reward for having 
broken away from an Eastern harem and all 
the suffering that has been the consequence of 
that action. A club, as I said before, is after 



186 IS THIS REALLY FREEDOM? 

all another kind of harem, but it has none of 
the mystery and charm of the Harem of the 
East. 

How is one to learn and teach others what 
might perhaps be called " the tact of evolution " 
— I mean the art of knowing when to stop even 
in the realm of progress ? 

I cannot yet either analyse or classify in a 
satisfactory way your methods of thinking, since 
in changing from country to country even the 
words alter their meaning. In Servia, Liberal 
means Conservative, and Freemason on the 
Continent has quite a different meaning from 
what it has here ; so that the interpretation I 
would give to an opinion might fail to cover 
my real meaning. 

Do not think that this evening's pessimism 
is due to the fog nor to my poor dinner. It is 
the outcome of disillusions which every day 
become more complete. It seems to me that we 
Orientals are children to whom fairy tales have 
been told for too long — fairy tales which have 
every appearance of truth. You hear so much 
of the mirage of the East, but what is that com- 
pared to the mirage of the West, to which all 
Orientals are attracted ? 



IS THIS REALLY FREEDOM? 187 

They tell you fairy tales, too, you women of 
the West — fairy tales which, like ours, have all 
the appearance of truth. I wonder, when the 
Englishwomen have really won their vote and 
the right to exercise all the tiring professions of 
men, what they will have gained ? Their faces 
will be a little sadder, a little more weary, and 
they will have become wholly disillusioned. 

Go to the root of things and you will find the 
more things change the more they are the same ; 
nothing really changes. Human nature is 
always the same. We cannot stop the ebb or 
flow of Time, however much we try. The great 
mass of mediocrity alone is happy, for it is con- 
tent to swim with the tide. Does it not seem 
to you, that each of us from the age when we 
begin to reason feels more or less the futility 
and uselessness of some of our efforts ; the little 
good that struggling has brought us, and the 
danger we necessarily run, in this awful desire 
to go full speed ahead ? And yet, this desire to 
go towards something, futile though it be, is 
one of the most indestructible of Western 
sentiments. 

When in Turkey we met together, and spoke 
of the Women of England, we imagined that 



188 IS THIS REALLY FREEDOM? 

they had nothing more to wish for in this world. 
But we had no idea of what the struggle for life 
meant to them, nor how terrible was this eternal 
search after happiness. Which is the harder 
struggle of the two ? The latter is the only 
struggle we know in Turkey, and the same 
futile struggle goes on all the world over. 

Happiness — what a mirage ! At best is it not 
a mere negation of pain, for each one's idea of 
happiness is so different ? When I was fifteen 
years old they made me a present of a little 
native from Central Africa. For her there was 
no greater torture than to wear garments of 
any kind, and her idea of happiness was to get 
back to the home on the borders of Lake Chad 
and the possibility of eating another roasted 
European. 

Last night I went to a banquet. It was the 
first time that I had ever heard after-dinner 
speeches, and I admired the ease with which 
everyone found something to say, and the women 
spoke quite as well as the men. Afterwards I 
was told, however, that these speeches had all 
been prepared beforehand. 

The member of Parliament who sat on my 



IS THIS REALLY FREEDOM? 189 

right spoilt my evening's enjoyment by making 
me believe I had to speak, and all through the 
dinner I tried to find something to say, and yet 
I knew that, were I actually to rise, I could not 
utter a sound. What most astonished me at 
that banquet, however, was that all those women, 
who made no secret of wanting to direct the 
affairs of the nation, dared not take the responsi- 
bility of smoking until they were told. What a 
contradiction ! 

Since I came here I have seen nothing but 
" Votes for Women " chalked all over the pave- 
ments and walls of the town. These methods 
of propaganda are all so new to me. 

I went to a Suffrage street corner meeting the 
other night, and I can assure you I never want 
to go again. The speaker carried her little stool 
herself, another carried a flag, and yet a third 
woman a bundle of leaflets and papers to dis- 
tribute to the crowd. After walking for a little 
while they placed the stool outside a dirty-looking 
public-house, and the lady who carried the flag 
boldly got on to the stool and began to shout, 
not waiting till the people came to hear her, 
so anxious was she to begin. Although she did 
not look nervous in the least she possibly was, 



190 IS THIS REALLY FREEDOM ? 

for her speech came abruptly to an end, and my 
heart began to beat in sympathy with her. 

When the other lady began to speak quite a 
big crowd of men and women assembled: de- 
graded-looking ruffians they were, most of them, 
and a class of man I had not yet seen. All the 
time they interrupted her, but she went bravely 
on, returning their rudeness with sarcasm. What 
an insult to womanhood it seemed to me, to have 
to bandy words with this vulgar mob. One man 
told her that " she was ugly." Another asked 
" if she had done her washing," but the most of 
their hateful remarks I could not understand, so 
different was their English from the English I 
had learned in Turkey. 

Yet how I admired the courage of that woman ! 
No physical pain could be more awful to me 
than not to be taken for a lady, and this speaker 
of such remarkable eloquence and culture was 
not taken for a lady by the crowd, seeing she 
was supposed "to do her own washing " like 
any women of the people. 

The most pitiful part of it all to me is the 
blind faith these women have in their cause, and 
the confidence they have that in explaining their 
policy to the street ruffians, who cannot even 



IS THIS REALLY FREEDOM ? 191 

understand that they are ladies, they will further 
their cause by half an inch. 

I was glad when the meeting was over, but 
sorry that such rhetoric should have been wasted 
on the half-intoxicated loungers who deigned to 
come out of the public-house and listen. If 
this is what the women of your country have to 
bear in their fight for freedom, all honour to 
them, but I would rather groan in bondage. 

I have been to see your famous Houses of 
Parliament, both the Lords and the Commons. 
Like all the architecture in London, these build- 
ings create such an atmosphere of kingly great- 
ness in which I, the democrat of my own country, 
am revelling. The Democracy of the East is so 
different from that of the West, of which I had 
so pitiful an example at the street corner. 

I was invited to tea at the House of Commons, 
and to be invited to tea there of all places 
seemed very strange to me. Is the drinking of 
tea of such vital importance that the English 
can never do without it ? I wonder if the Turks, 
now their Parliament is opened, will drink coffee 
with ladies instead of attending to the laws of 
the nation ! 



192 IS THIS REALLY FREEDOM? 

What a long, weary wait I had before they 
would let me into the Houses of Parliament. 
Every time I asked the policeman where the 
member of Parliament was who had invited 
me, he smilingly told me they had gone to fetch 
him. I thought he was joking at first, and 
threatened to go, but he only laughed, and said, 
" He will come in time." Only when I had 
made up my mind that the tea-party would 
never come off, and had settled myself on an 
uncomfortable divan to study the curious people 
passing in and out, did my host appear. I 
thought it was only in Turkey that appoint- 
ments were kept with such laxity, but I was 
reminded by the M.P. who invited me that I 
was three-quarters of an hour late in the first 
place. 

I was conducted through a long, handsome 
corridor to a lobby where all sorts of men and 
women were assembled, pushing one another, 
gesticulating and speaking in loud, disagreeable 
voices like those outside of the Paris Bourse. 
Just then, however, a bell rang, and I was con- 
ducted back past the policeman to my original 
seat. What curious behaviour ! What did it all 
mean ? I spoke to the friendly policeman, but 




A COKNEK OF A TURKISH HAREM OF TO-DAY 

This photograph was taken expressly for a London paper. It was returned with this 
comment : ' ' The British public would not accept this as a picture of a Turkish Harem. 
As a matter of fact, in the smartest Turkish houses European furniture is much in 
evidence. 




Turkish Women and Children in the Country 

They are accompanied by the negress. 



IS THIS REALLY FREEDOM ? 193 

his explanation that they were " dividing " did 
not convey much to my mind. As I stood there, 
a stray member of Parliament came and looked 
at me. He must have been a great admirer of 
Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, for he wore a monocle 
and an orchid in his buttonhole. 

" Are these suffragettes ? " he asked the 
policeman, staring at me and the other women. 
" No, sir," answered the policeman, " ladies." 
It was too late for tea when my host returned 
to fetch me, but the loss of a cup of tea is no 
calamity to me, as I only drink it to appear 
polite. I was next taken up to the Ladies' 
Gallery, and was sworn in as one of the relations 
of a member who had given up his ladies' tickets 
to my host. The funny part of it was, that I 
could not understand the language my relation 
spoke, so different was his English from the Eng- 
lish I had learnt in Turkey. But what a fuss 
to get into that Ladies' Gallery ! I had no idea 
of making a noise before it was suggested to 
my mind by making me sign a book, and I cer- 
tainly wanted to afterwards. What unnecessary 
trouble ! What do you call it ? Red tapeism ! 
One might almost be in Turkey under Hamid 
and not in Free England. 

N 



194 IS THIS REALLY FREEDOM? 

But, my dear, why have you never told me 
that the Ladies' Gallery is a harem ? A harem 
with its latticed windows ! The harem of the 
Government ! No wonder the women cried 
through the windows of that harem that they 
wanted to be free ! I felt inclined to shout out 
too. "Is it in Free England that you dare to 
have a harem ? How inconsistent are you 
English ! You send your women out unpro- 
tected all over the world, and here in the work- 
shop where your laws are made, you cover them 
with a symbol of protection." 

The performance which I saw through the 
harem windows was boring enough. The 
humbler members of the House had little respect 
for their superiors, seeing they sat in their 
presence with their hats on, and this I am told 
was the habit of a very ill-bred man. Still 
perhaps this attitude does not astonish me 
since on all sides I hear complaints of the 
Government. It is a bad sign for a country, 
my dear. Are you following in Turkey's foot- 
steps ? Hatred of the Government and prison 
an honour ! Poor England ! 

I was very anxious to see the notorious Mr. 
Lloyd George. Since I have been in London 



IS THIS REALLY FREEDOM ? 195 

his name is on everyone's lips. I have heard 
very little good of him except from the ruffians 
at the street corner meeting, and yet like our 
Hamid he seems to be all-powerful. For a long 
time, I could not distinguish him in the crowd 
below, although my companion spared no pains 
in pointing him out. I was looking for some 
one with a commanding presence, some one 
with an eagle eye and a wicked face like our 
Sultan, some one before whom a whole nation 
was justified in trembling. But I still wonder 
whether I am thinking of the right man when 
I think of Mr. Lloyd George. 

There is not much excitement in your House 
of Commons, is there ? I prefer the Chamber 
of Deputies, even though some one fired at 
M. Briand the day I went there. There at 
least they are men of action. Here some 
members were so weary of law-making, that 
they crossed their legs, folded their arms, and 
went to sleep whilst their colleagues opposite 
were speaking. I thought it would have been 
more polite to have gone out and taken tea, as 
the other members seemed to be doing all the 
time. It would have given them strength to 
listen to the tiresome debate. 



196 IS THIS REALLY FREEDOM? 

To me, perhaps, the speaking would have been 
less unbearable if the harem windows had not 
deadened the sound, which, please notice, is my 
polite Turkish way of saying, they all spoke 
so indistinctly. 

The bell began to ring again. The members of 
Parliament all walked towards the harem to this 
curious direction, "Eyes to the right and nose to 
the left." x And at last my friend took me away. 

We went to see a performance of Trilby at 
His Majesty's Theatre the other night. I liked 
the acting of the terrible Svengali, but not the 
piece. As a great treat to me, my friend and 
her husband had us invited to supper in the 
roof of the theatre with the famous Sir Herbert 
Tree. I could not help saying, " I preferred 
not to go, for Sir Herbert Tree frightened me." 

However, we went all the same, and had a 
delightful supper-party. For some reason or 
other the manager was our host, and I was 
thankful not to eat with Sir Herbert Tree. As 
we came away my friend asked if I was still 
frightened now we had eaten with him. 

" But we have not eaten with him," I said. 
1 I leave my friend's spelling unchanged — G. E. 



IS THIS REALLY FREEDOM? 197 

" Indeed we have," she said. 

" Is the person with whom we had supper the 
horrid Svengali ? " I asked. 

" Why, of course," she answered, laughing. 

As you know, this is not my first experience 
of a theatre, so there is no excuse for me. But 
I can assure you no one would ever dream that 
Svengali was made up. What a pity it would 
have been for me to have gone through life 
thinking of your famous actor as Svengali. 
I think that when actors have to play such dis- 
agreeable parts, they should show themselves 
to the public afterwards as they really are, or 
not put their names on the programme. 

I saw another play at His Majesty's in which 
the principal roles were played by children. You 
cannot imagine how delightful I found it, and 
what a change it was from the eternal piece a 
these which I had become accustomed to see in 
Paris. The scenery indeed was a fairy pano- 
rama, and the piece charmingly interpreted. 
What astonished me was to see that both men 
and women took as much delight in it as the 
young folks. Only mothers in Paris would have 
brought their children to see such a moral play. 



198 IS THIS REALLY FREEDOM ? 

Ah, but I must tell you I have at last seen an 
Englishwoman who does not look weary of life. 
She is Miss Ellen Terry. How good it was to 
see her act. She was so natural and so full of 
fun, and enjoyed all she had to say and do, that 
her performance was a real joy to me. I wish 
I could have thanked her. 

I just love your hansom cabs. If I had money 
enough I would buy one for myself and drive 
about seeing London. You get the best view 
of everything in this way. When I first stepped 
into one I could not imagine where the coachman 
sat ; he called out to me from somewhere, but I 
could not find his voice, until he popped his 
fingers through a little trap door and knocked 
off my hat, for I cannot bear to pin on my hat. 

" Here I am," he answered to my query, and 
he thought he had a mad-woman for a fare. 

One night when I returned to my club after 
the theatre, there was one lonely woman seated 
in the reading-room near the fire. She seemed 
to me to be the youngest of all the ladies, 
although you may say that was no guarantee 
against middle age. I don't know how it was 



IS THIS REALLY FREEDOM ? 199 

we began to speak, since no one had introduced 
us, but she imagined I was a Frenchwoman, 
hence probably the explanation of the liberty 
she had taken in addressing me. Yet she looked 
so sad. 

" You French," she said, " are used to sitting 
up a good deal later than we do here." 

" I thought," I said, " the protocol did not 
bother about such trifles." 

" Ah, now you are in the country of protocols 
and etiquette," she answered. 

She must have been asking me questions only 
as an excuse to speak herself, because she took 
really no interest in my answers, and she kept 
on chattering and chattering because she did 
not want me to go away. She spoke of America 
and India and China and Japan, all of which 
countries she seemed to know as well as her 
own. Never have I met in my travels anyone 
so fond of talking, and yet at the same time 
with a spleen which made me almost tired. 

I concluded that she was an independent 
woman, whose weariness must have been the 
result of constant struggling. She was all alone 
in the world ; one of those poor creatures who 
might die in a top back-room without a soul 



200 IS THIS REALLY FREEDOM? 

belonging to her. Her mind must have been 
saturated with theories, she must have known 
all the uncomfortable shocks which come from 
a changed position, and yet she was British 
enough to tremble before Public Opinion. 

" But do you know why I travel so much ? " 
at last I had the opportunity of asking her. 
" Like Diogenes who tried to find a Man, I have 
been trying to find a Free woman, but have not 
been successful." 

I do not think she understood in the least 
what I meant. — Your affectionate friend, 

Zeyneb. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

THE CLASH OF CREEDS 



CHAPTER XVIII 

THE CLASH OF GREEDS 

London, Jan. 1909. 
1 AM indeed a desenchanUe. I envy you even 
your reasonable illusions about us. We are 
hopelessly what we are. I have lost all mine 
about you, and you seem to me as hopelessly 
what you are. 

The only difference between the spleen of 
London and the spleen of Constantinople is that 
the foundation of the Turkish character is dry 
cynicism, whilst the Englishman's is inane 
doggedness without object. In his fatalism the 
Turk is a philosopher. Your Englishman calls 
himself a man of action, but he is a mere empiric. 

I quite understand now, however, that you do 
not pity my countrywomen, not because they 
do not need pity, but because for years you have 
led only the life of the women of this country, 
women who start so courageously to fight life's 
battle and who ultimately have had to bury all 

203 



204 THE CLASH OF CREEDS 

their life's illusions. Now, I see only too well, 
there are beings for whom freedom becomes too 
heavy a burden to bear. The women I have 
met here, seem to have been striving all their 
lives to get away from everything — home, family, 
social conventions. They want the right to live 
alone, to travel as they like, to be responsible 
for their own lives. Yet when their ambition 
is realised, the only harvest they reap after a 
youth of struggle is that of disenchantment. 

Yet I ask myself, is a lonely old age worth a 
youth of effort ? Have they not confused indi- 
vidual liberty, which is the right to live as one 
pleases, with true liberty, which to my Oriental 
mind is the right to choose one's own joys and 
forbearances ? 

Is it not curious that here, in a Christian 
country, I see nothing of the religion of Christ ? 
And yet commentaries are not lacking. Every 
sect has the presumption to suppose its par- 
ticular interpretation of the words of Christ 
is the only right interpretation, and Christians 
have changed the meaning of His words so 
much, and seen Christ through the prism of 
their own minds, that I, primitive being that I 



THE CLASH OF CREEDS 205 

am, do not recognise in their tangled creeds 
the simple and beautiful teaching of Jesus of 
Nazareth, Son of the carpenter Joseph. 

Sometimes it seems to me that the religion of 
Christ has been brought beyond the confines of 
absurdity. Would it not be better to try and 
follow the example of Christ than to waste time 
disputing whether He would approve of eating 
chocolate biscuits on fast-days and whether 
wild duck is a fasting diet, whilst duck of the 
farmyard is forbidden ? To me, all this seems 
profanely childish. 

The impression these numerous creeds make 
on me is like that of members of the same 
family disputing with one another. What 
happens in the case of families happens in the 
case of religion. From these discussions over 
details follow, first mistrust, then dislike, 
then hatred, always to the detriment of the 
best interest of them all. 

I went to a Nonconformist chapel the other 
evening, but I could not bring myself to realise 
that I was in a chapel at all. There was nothing 
divine or sacred either in the building or the 
service. It was more like a lecture by an 
eloquent professor. Nor did the congregation 



206 THE CLASH OF CREEDS 

worship as we worship in the East. It seemed 
to me, as if it was not to worship God that they 
were there, but to appease the anger of some 
Northern Deity, cold, intolerant, and wrathful — 
an idea of the Almighty which I shall never 
understand. 

It astonished me to hear the professor calling 
those present " miserable sinners," and as I was 
one of the congregation I was not a little hurt, 
for I have nothing very serious on my conscience. 
But the Catholics, in this respect, err as much 
as the Protestants. Why this hysteria for sins 
you have not committed ? Why this shame 
of one's self, this exaggerated humility, this 
continual fear ? Why should you stand 
trembling before your Maker ? 

While I was still inside the chapel, a lady 
came up and was introduced to me. We walked 
down the street together, and in the course of 
conversation she discovered I was not even a 
Nonconformist, nor a Roman Catholic, but a 
heathen. And she at once began to pity me, 
and show me the advantages of her religion. 
But what could she teach me about Christ that 
I did not already know ? Unfortunately for 
her she knew nothing of the religion of Mahomet, 




The Balcony at the back of Zeyneb's House 

The house is covered with wistaria. 




Zeyneb AND Melek 

The Yashmak is exceedingly becoming, the white tulle showing the lips to 
great advantage 



THE CLASH OF CREEDS 207 

nor how broad-minded he was, nor with what 
admiration he had spoken of the crucified 
Jesus, and how we all loved Christ from 
Mahomet's interpretation of His life and work. 1 

As usual here, as in other Christian countries, 
marriage seems an everlasting topic of interest. 
I was hardly seven years old when I was taken 
for the first time to a non-Turkish marriage. 
It was the wedding of some Greek farm-people 
our governess knew. We were present at the 
nuptial benediction, which took place inside 
the house and which seemed to me interminable. 
After that, everyone, including the bride, par- 
took of copious refreshments. Then, when we 
had been taken for a drive in the country, we 
returned to dinner, which was served in front 
of the stable. After the meal we danced on 
the grass to the strains of a violin, accordion, 
and triangle. That is the only Christian mar- 
riage I had seen till 1908, and I was astonished to 
find how different a Christian wedding is here. 

What is the use of an organ for marrying 

1 It may be reasonably urged in reply that Zeyneb's 
criticism of our Christianity is far from adequate. But I 
have preferred to present the impressions of a Turkish 
woman. — G. E. 



208 THE CLASH OF CREEDS 

people ? And twelve bridesmaids ? The bridal 
pair themselves look extremely uncomfortable 
at all this useless ceremonial, to which nobody 
pays any particular attention. Every bride 
and bridegroom must know how unnecessary 
are all these preparations, and how marriages 
bore friends. Yet they go on putting them- 
selves to all this useless trouble, and for what ? 

Each person invited, I am told, has to bring 
a present. What a wicked expense to put 
their friends to. Oh, vanity of vanities ! 

How is it possible not to admire the primitive 
Circassians, who when they love one another 
and wish to marry, walk off without consulting 
anyone but themselves ? 

I am also disappointed at the manner in 
which divorce proceedings are conducted in 
England. What a quantity of unkind words 
and vile accusations ! What a low handling and 
throwing of mud at each other, what expense, 
what time and worry ! And all simply to prove 
that two people are not suited to live together. 

To think that, with the possibility of such a 
life of tragedy, there are still people who have 
the courage to get married ! It seems to me 



THE CLASH OF CREEDS 209 

there are some who take marriage too seriously, 
others who do not take it seriously enough, 
and that others again only take it seriously when 
one of the partners wants to be liberated. 

How sad it is ! And what good can be said 
of laws, the work of human beings, which not 
only do not help us in our misfortunes, but 
extend neither pity nor pardon to those who 
try to suffer a little less. 

During the time I lived away yonder and 
suffered from a total absence of liberty, I 
imagined that Europe respected the happiness 
and the misfortunes of individuals. How 
horrible it is to find in the daily papers the 
names of people mercilessly branded by their 
fellow-men for having committed no other fault 
than that of trying to be less unhappy, for 
having the madness to wish to repair their 
wrecked existence. To publish the reports of 
the evidence, the sordid gossip of menials, the 
calumnies, the stolen letters, written under such 
different circumstances, in moments of happi- 
ness, in absolute confidence, or extreme mental 
agony, in which a woman has laid her soul bare, 
is loathsome. Is it not worse than perjury to 
exact from a friend's lips what he only knows 



210 THE CLASH OF CREEDS 

in confidence ? Poor imprudent beings ! They 
have had their moments of sincerity : for this 
your sad civilisation of the West makes them 
pay with the rest of their broken lives. 

For a long time I have wanted to make the 
acquaintance of Mr. W. T. Stead, who is known 
and respected in the East more perhaps than 
any Englishman. I had no particular reason to 
go and see him except that he knew my father 
at the first Hague Conference. So, one day I 
was bold enough to jump into a hansom and 
drive to his office. I was asked whom I 
wanted. I asked for Mr. Stead. 

" Who wants him ? " I was asked. 

" I do," I replied. 

" Give me your card." But as I had no card 
I wrote on a slip of paper : " The daughter of 
a Turkish friend of the Hague Conference will 
be so pleased to see you." 

He received me at once. There was so much 
to talk about. He spoke so nicely of my poor 
dead father, questioned me about the Sultan, 
about the country I had left, about the Balkans, 
about Crete, and the Turks themselves. More 
than an hour we talked together, and when 



THE CLASH OF CREEDS 211 

finally I rose to go he said to me : "Is there 
anything I can do for you ? " 

" No," I said, thanking him very kindly. 

" Then it was simply to see me," he went on, 
" that you came." 

" Yes," I said, " it is a friendly visit." He 
laughed heartily. 

" Do you know," he said, " that is the first 
time that this has happened in my life." 

Then he was kind enough to send for tea, 
and the tray was put down on the table among 
the papers and the journals, and he showed me 
signed portraits which he had collected during 
his travels, among them the one that my dear 
father had given him at The Hague. He then 
gave me his own, and signed it, " To my only 
Turkish lady friend." 

I saw him for a little while in Paris on his 
return from Constantinople, and he came back 
really enthusiastic. He was much in sympathy 
with the Young Turks, though he had much also 
to find fault with. He despised but pitied 
Abdul Hamid, and hoped that an entente be- 
tween England and Turkey could be arranged, 
but his ideas were quite unpractical. His policy 



212 THE CLASH OF CREEDS 

was purely sentimental, and his suggestions 
impossible. 

• ••••• 

I have had the pleasure, since I have been 
here, of seeing two diplomatists with whose 
voices I was familiar for many years in Con- 
stantinople. My father highly esteemed them 
both ; they often came to see him. When they 
had drunk their coffee, sometimes my father 
sent for us to come and play and sing to them, 
and from behind a curtain they courteously 
thanked us for our performance. 

Although I had so often heard their voices I 
never had an opportunity of seeing a photo of 
either of them, and I can't tell whether I was 
agreeably surprised or not. Have you ever tried 
putting a body to a voice ? 

What a magnificent city London is ! If you 
English are not proud of it, you ought to be. 
It is not only grand and magnificent but has an 
aristocratic look that despises mere ornament. 

Here in London I have a feeling of security, 
which I have had nowhere else in the world. 
It is the only capital in Europe I have so far 
seen that gives me a sense of orderliness not 



THE CLASH OF CREEDS 213 

dependent on authority. It seems to me as if 
English character were expressed even in the 
houses of the people. You can tell at a glance 
what kind of people dwell in the house you are 
entering. How different is Paris ! What a 
delight to have no concierge, those petty poten- 
tates who, as it were, keep the key of your daily 
life, and remedy there is none. 

For the first time since I left Turkey I have 
had here the sensation of real home life. As 
you know, we have no flats in Turkey, and have 
room to move about freely — room for your de- 
lightful English furniture, which to me is the 
most comfortable in the whole world. 

Like ours, the houses here are made for use, 
and their wide doors and broad passages seem to 
extend a welcome to you which French houses 
hardly ever do. In France you smell economy 
before you even reach the door-mat. 

You who are in Turkey can now understand 
what I have suffered from this narrowness of 
French domestic life. You can imagine my 
surprise when, the morning after my arrival 
here, a big tray was sent into my room with a 
heavy meal of eggs, bacon, fish, toast, mar- 
malade, and what not. I thought I must have 



214 THE CLASH OF CREEDS 

looked ill and as if I needed extra feeding, and 
I explained to my hostess that my white skin 
was not a sign of anaemia but my Oriental com- 
plexion : all the eggs and bacon in the world 
would not change the colour of my skin. She 
was not aware that the Mahometan never eats 
pork, and like so many others, seemed to forget 
that bacon, like pork, came from a forbidden 
source. 

I do not find London noisy, but what noise 
there is one feels is serving a purpose. Life 
seems so serious ; everyone is busy crowding 
into twelve hours the work of twenty-four. 
We Turks take no heed of the passing hours. 

The Englishmen remind me of the Turks. 
They have the same grave demeanour, the same 
appearance of indifference to our sex, the same 
look of stubborn determination, and, like the 
Turk, every Englishman is a Sultan in his own 
house. Like the Turk, too, he is sincere and 
faithful in his friendships, but Englishmen have 
two qualities that the Turks do not possess. 
They are extremely good business men, and in 
social relations are extremely prudent, although 
it is difficult to say where prudence ends and 
hypocrisy begins. 




The Drawing-room of a Harem showing a Bridal Throne 

On the Bridal Throne the Turkish woman sits on her wedding day to receive 
her friends good wishes. It remains the chief seat in the harem ; in the 
Imperial Palace it is a fine throne, in poor houses only a glorified chair, but it 
is always there. 




A Corner of the Harem 

This Turkish lady collected the ribbons of the battleships on the Bosphorus, 
and they are hanging on the wall. 



THE CLASH OF CREEDS 215 

But if Englishmen remind me of Turks, I can 
find nothing in common between English and 
Turkish women. They are in direct contrast 
to one another in everything. Perhaps it is 
this marked contrast that balances our friend- 
ship. A Turkish woman's life is as mysterious 
as an Englishwoman's life is an open book, which 
all can read who care. Before I met the suffra- 
gettes, I knew only sporting and society women. 
They were all passionately absorbed in their 
own amusements, which as you know do not in 
the least appeal to me. I suppose we Turkish 
women who have so much time to devote to 
culture become unreasonably exacting. But 
everywhere I have been — in England, Germany, 
France, Italy, and Spain — I have found how little 
and how uselessly the women read, and how society 
plays havoc with their taste for good books. 

Englishwomen are pretty, but are deficient 
in charm. They have no particular desire and 
make no effort to please. You know the charm 
of the Turkish woman. The Englishwoman is 
pig-headed, undiplomatic, brutally sincere, but 
a good and faithful friend. The Turkish 
woman — well, you must fill that in yourself ! 
I am too near to focus her. 



216 THE CLASH OF CREEDS 

But now that I have seen the women of most 
countries, you may want to know which I most 
admire. 

Well, I will tell you frankly, the Turkish 
woman. An ordinary person would answer, 
" Of course," but you are not an ordinary 
person, so I shall at once give you my reasons. 
It is not because I am a Turkish woman myself, 
but because, in spite of the slavery of their 
existence, Turkish women have managed to 
keep their minds free from prejudice. With 
them it is not what people think they ought to 
think, but what they think themselves. No- 
where else in Europe have I found women with 
such courage in thinking. 

In every country there are women — though 
they may be a mere handful — who are above 
class, above nationality, and dare to be them- 
selves. These are the people I appreciate the 
most. These are the people I shall always wish 
to know, for to them the whole world is kin. — 
Your affectionate friend, Zeyneb. 



CHAPTER XIX 

IN THE ENEMY'S LAND 

\ 



CHAPTER XIX 

IN THE ENEMY'S LAND 

Venice, Oct. 1911. 
YOU will say perhaps I am reminded of the 
Bosphorus everywhere, just as Maurice Barres 
is reminded of Lorraine in every land he visits. 
Yet how would it be possible not to think of the 
Bosphorus in Venice, especially when for so many 
years I have had to do without it ? Here, there 
is the same blue sky, the same blue carpet of sea, 
the same sunset, and the same wonderful sunrise 
— only gondolas have taken the place of caiques. 
All day and part of the evening I allow my- 
self to be rowed as my gondolier wishes from 
canal to canal, and I am indignant I did not 
know sooner there was a place in Europe where 
one could come to rest. Why do the French 
and Swiss doctors not send their patients here ? 
They would be cured certainly of that disease 
from which everyone suffers nowadays, the 
fatigue of the big towns. 

219 



220 IN THE ENEMY'S LAND 

But since so many illustrious poets have sung 
the praises of Venice what is there for me to 
say ? I prefer to glorify it as the Brahmins 
worship their Deity, in silence. 

The Venetians do not appreciate Venice any 
more than I appreciated Constantinople when I 
lived there. They have no idea how lovely 
Venice is, but prefer the Lido, where they meet 
the people of all nations, whose buzzing in the 
daytime replaces the mosquitoes at night. 

On our way here, the train went off the rails, 
so we had to alight for some time : then one of 
the party suggested that we should visit Verona, 
and I was very delighted at this happy idea. 

It was midnight. We walked along the narrow 
streets of the deserted city. The town was 
bathed in a curious, indescribable light, and it 
was more beautiful than anything we could have 
seen in the daylight, when perhaps the noise 
would have killed its charm. I hope that fate 
has not decreed that my impression of that 
silent sleeping city shall ever be destroyed. 

I travelled to Venice in a compartment marked 
" Ladies only," not because I have any parti- 
cular affection for those " harem " compart- 
ments, but because there was not a seat for me 



IN THE ENEMY'S LAND 221 

with my friends. An old English spinster was my 
companion. She welcomed me with a gracious- 
ness that I did not appreciate, and at once began 
a very dull and conventional conversation. 

Presently, however, two Italian officers came 
in, and politely excusing themselves in their 
language, sat down. They said they had been 
up all night, had been standing from Milan, and 
had to go on duty when they reached Venice, 
and begged the old lady politely to allow them 
a quarter of an hour's rest. 

The spinster did not understand, so I trans- 
lated. 

" Disgraceful," she said and ordered them 
out. But still the officers remained. Then 
turning to me she said, <c You who must be 
Italian, please tell them what I think of them." 

I told her, "It was not my role to interpret 
such uncharitable language." 

Then the officers turning to me, said in 
Italian, " Although English, you are much 
kinder than your companion ; please tell her we 
only want to stop a quarter of an hour, and 
there is absolutely no danger for her." 

Rising, the old spinster looked for the alarm 
signal, but finally decided to call the guard, 



222 IN THE ENEMY'S LAND 

who ordered the officers out. Before they went, 
however, they pulled out their watches and 
asked me to thank her for her kind hospitality : 
they reminded me that they had what they 
wanted, a quarter of an hour's rest. 

Luckily our arrival at Venice meant good-bye 
to this disagreeable old creature, whose type 
flourishes all over the Continent, even in Con- 
stantinople, and who sacrifices on the altar of 
respectability everything, even charity. 

Now I understand the enthusiasm of those 
who have spoken of Italy. Nothing one can 
say is sufficient eulogy for this land of sunshine 
and poetry and tradition. 

I am told by the people of the north I shall 
be disappointed when I see the south, but 
that does not disturb my impression of the 
moment. I am worshipping Venice, and every- 
thing there pleases me. 

To me it seems almost as if it were the home 
of the ancient Greeks, with all their artistic 
instincts and roguery, all their faults, and all 
their primitive charm. From my open window, 
which looks into a canaletto, I heard the song 
of a gondolier. His voice was the sweetest I 




/• • 



.4—' 





A Caique on the Bosphorus 




Turkish Women in the Country 



IN THE ENEMY'S LAND 223 

have ever heard ; no opera singer ever gave me 
greater pleasure. Now that I know the number 
of his boat, I have engaged him as my gondolier, 
and every evening after dinner, instead of wasting 
my time at Bridge, I go on to the canal, leaving 
it to the discretion of my guide where he takes 
me ; and when he is tired of rowing, he brings 
me back. All the time he sings and sings and 
I dream, and his beautiful voice takes me far, 
far away — away from the unfriendly West. 

Amongst its other attractions, Venice has an 
aristocracy. They are poor certainly, but, with 
such blood in their veins, do they need riches ? 
And surely their charm and nobility are worth 
all the dollars put together of the vulgar Trans- 
atlantics who have bought the big historic 
palaces of Venice. I feel here as I felt in London, 
the delight of being again in a Kingdom, and I 
can breathe and live. How restful it is, after 
the nervous strain of the exaggerated Demo- 
cracy of France. 



Brussels, Nov. 1911. 
I have had this letter quite a fortnight in my 
trunk. I did not want to send it to you. Some- 



224 IN THE ENEMY'S LAND 

how I felt ashamed to let you see how much I 
had loved Italy — Turkey's enemy. 

I left Venice the day after the Declaration of 
War, if such a disgraceful proceeding would be 
called a Declaration of War. For a long time 
I could not make up my mind that that nation 
of gentlemen, that nation of poetry and music 
and art, that nation whose characteristics so 
appealed to my Oriental nature, that nation 
whom I thought so civilised in the really good 
sense of the word, could be capable of such 
injustice. 

Even in the practice of " the rights of the 
strong " a little more tact could have been 
exercised. Surely it is not permissible in the 
twentieth century to act as savages did — at least 
those we thought savages. 

In a few years from now, we shall be able to 
see more clearly how the Italian Government of 
1911 was able to step forward and take advan- 
tage of a Sister State, whose whole efforts were 
centred on regeneration, and no one protested. 
What a wonderful account of the history of 
our times ! 

When I think that it is in Christian Europe 
that such injustice passes unheeded, and that 



IN THE ENEMY'S LAND 225 

Christian Europe dares to send us missionaries 
to preach this gospel of Civilisation — I curse the 
Fate which has forced me to accept the hospi- 
tality of the West. 



Paris, Feb. 1912. 

Two chapters more seem necessary to my 
experience of the West. I submit in silence. 
Kismet. 

Hardly had I returned from Brussels than I 
became seriously ill. Do not ask me what was 
the matter with me. Science has not yet found 
a name for my suffering. I have consulted 
doctors, many doctors, and perhaps for this 
reason I have no idea as to the nature of my 
illness. Each doctor wanted to operate for 
something different, and only when I told them 
I had not the money for an operation have they 
found that after all it is not necessary. I think 
I have internal neuralgia, but modern science 
calls it " appendicitis," and will only treat me 
under that fashionable name. At Smyrna, I 
remember having a similar attack. My grand- 
mother, terrified to see me suffering, ran in for a 
neighbour whom she knew only by name. The 



226 IN THE ENEMY'S LAND 

neighbour came at once, said a few prayers over 
me, passed her magic hands over my body, and 
in a short time I was healed. 

Here I might have knocked up all the in- 
habitants of Paris : not one would have come 
to help me. 

" The progress of modern science " was my 
last illusion. Why must I have this final dis- 
appointment ? Yet what does it matter ? 
Every cloud has a silver lining. And this 
final experience has brought me to the decision, 
that I shall go back to Turkey as soon as I can 
walk. There at least, unless my own people 
have been following in the footsteps of modern 
civilisation, I shall be allowed to be ill at my 
leisure, without the awful spectre hovering over 
me of a useless operation. 

One night I was suffering so much that I 
thought it advisable to send for the doctor. It 
was only two o'clock in the morning, but the 
message the concierge sent back was, " that one 
risked being assassinated in Paris at that hour," 
and he refused to go. 

The next day I had a letter from my landlord 
requesting me not to wake the concierge up 
again at two o'clock in the morning. And this 



IN THE ENEMY'S LAND 227 

is the country of liberty, the country where one 
is free to die, provided only the concierge is not 
awakened at two o'clock in the morning. 

This little incident seems insignificant in itself, 
but to me it will be a very painful remembrance 
of one of the chief characteristics of the people 
of this country — a total lack of hospitality. 

If our Oriental countries must one day become 
like these countries of the West, if they too 
must inherit all the vices, with which this civili- 
sation is riddled through and through, then let 
them perish now. 

If civilisation does not teach each individual 
the great and supreme quality of pity, then 
what use is it ? What difference is there, please 
tell me, between the citizens of Paris and the 
carnivorous inhabitants of Darkest Africa ? We 
Orientals imagine the word civilisation is a 
synonym of many qualities, and I, like others, 
believed it. Is it possible to be so primitive ? 
Yet why should I be ashamed of believing in 
the goodness of human beings ? Why should I 
blame myself, because these people have not 
come up to my expectations ? 

This musing reminds me of a story which our 
Koran Professor used to tell us. " There was 



228 IN THE ENEMY'S LAND 

once," he said, "in a country of Asia Minor, a 
little girl who believed all she heard. One day 
she looked out of her window, and saw a chain 
of mountains blue in the distance. 

" * Is that really their colour ? ' she asked her 
comrades. 

44 ' Yes,' they answered. 

" And so delighted was she with this infor- 
mation that she started out to get a nearer view 
of the blue mountains. 

14 Day after day she walked and walked, and 
at last got to the summit of the blue mountains, 
only to find grass just as she would have found 
it anywhere else. But she would not give up. 

44 4 Where are the blue mountains ? ' she asked 
a shepherd, and he showed another chain higher 
and farther away, and on and on she went until 
she came to the mountains of Alti. 

44 All her existence she had the same hopes 
and the same illusions. Only when she came to 
the evening of her life did she understand that 
it was the distance that lent the mountains their 
hue — but it was too late to go back, and she 
perished in the cold, biting snow." 

I do not know if there is another country in 




-sr r* 



f:_ 




Melek on the Veranda at Fontainebleau 



IN THE ENEMY'S LAND 229 

the world where foreigners can be as badly 
treated as they are here ; at any rate they could 
not be treated worse. They are criticised, 
laughed at, envied, and flattered, and they have 
the supreme privilege of paying for all those 
people whose hobby is economy. 

Everything is done here by paradox; the 
foreigner who has talent is more admired than 
the Frenchman, yet if he does anything wrong, 
there is no forgiveness for him. 

An Englishwoman I knew quarrelled with a 
Frenchwoman, and the latter reproached her 
with having accepted one luncheon and one 
dinner. The Englishwoman (it sounds fearfully 
English, doesn't it ?) sent her ex-hostess twelve 
francs, and the Frenchwoman not only accepted 
it but sent a receipt. If I had not seen that 
receipt I don't think I could have believed the 
story ! 

Another lady, whose dressmaker claimed 
from her a sum she was not entitled to, was 
told by that dressmaker, unless she were paid 
at once, she would inform the concierge. 
Tell me, I beg of you, in what other country 
would this have been possible ? In what other 
country of the world would self-respecting 



230 IN THE ENEMY'S LAND 

people pay any attention, far less go for in- 
formation, to the vulgar harpies who preside 
over the destinies of the fifteen or twenty 
families who occupy a Paris house ? 

When I have been able to get my ideas and 
impressions a little into focus, I intend to write 
for you, and for you only, what a woman without 
any preparation for the battle of life, a foreigner, 
a woman alone, and last but not least, a Turk, 
has had to suffer in Paris. 

You who know what our life is in Turkey, 
and how we have been kept in glass cases and 
wrapt in cotton wool, with no knowledge of 
the meaning of life, will understand what the 
awful change means, and how impossible for a 
Turkish woman is Western life. 

Do you remember the year of my arrival ? 
Do you remember how I wanted to urge all my 
young friends away yonder to take their liberty 
as I had taken mine, so that before they died 
they might have the doubtful pleasure of know- 
ing what it was to live ? 

Now, I hope if ever they come to Europe they 
will not come to Paris except as tourists ; that 
they will see the beautiful things there are to be 
seen, the Provence with its fine cathedrals and 



IN THE ENEMY'S LAND 231 

its historic surroundings; that they will amuse 
themselves taking motor-car trips and com- 
paring it with their excursions on a mule's back 
in Asia ; that they will see the light of Paris, 
but never its shade ; and that they will return, 
as you have returned from Constantinople, with 
one regret, that you couldn't stay longer. 

If only my experience could be of use to my 
compatriots who are longing as I longed six 
years ago for the freedom of the West, I shall 
never regret having suffered. — Your affectionate 
friend, Zeyneb. 



CHAPTER XX 

THE END OF THE DREAM 



CHAPTER XX 

THE END OF THE DREAM 

Marseilles, 5th March, 1912. 
IT is to-morrow that I sail. In a week from 
to-day, I shall again be away yonder amongst 
those whom I have always felt so near, and who 
I know have not forgotten me. 

In just a week from to-day I shall again be 
one of those unrecognisible figures who cross 
and recross the silent streets of our town — some 
one who no longer belongs to the same world as 
you — some one who must not even think as you 
do — some one who will have to try and forget 
she led the existence of a Western woman for 
six long, weary years. 

What heart-breaking disappointments have 
I not to take away with me ! It makes me sad 
to think how England has changed ! England 
with its aristocratic buildings and kingly archi- 
tecture — England with its proud and self- 
respecting democracy — the England that our 

235 



236 THE END OF THE DREAM 

great Kemal Bey taught us to know, that 
splendid people the world admires so much, 
sailing so dangerously near the rocks. 

I do not pretend to understand the suffra- 
gettes or their " window-smashing " policy, but 
I must say, I am even more surprised at the 
attitude of your Government. However much 
these ill-advised women have over-stepped the 
boundaries of their sex privileges, however 
wrong they may be, surely the British Govern- 
ment could have found some other means of 
dealing with them, given their cause the atten- 
tion they demanded, or used some diplomatic 
way of keeping them quiet. I cannot tell you 
the horrible impression it produces on the mind 
of a Turkish woman to learn that England not 
only imprisons but tortures women ; to me it is 
the cataclysm of all my most cherished faiths. 
Ever since I can remember, England had been 
to me a kind of Paradise on earth, the land 
which welcomed to its big hospitable bosom 
all Europe's political refugees. It was the land 
of all lands I longed to visit, and now I hear a 
Liberal Government is torturing women. Some- 
how my mind will not accept this statement. 

Write to me often, very often, dear girl. 



THE END OF THE DREAM 237 

You know exactly where I shall be away yonder, 
and exactly what I shall be doing. You know 
even the day when I shall again begin my quiet, 
almost cloistered existence as a Moslem woman, 
and how I shall long for news of that Europe 
which has so interested and so disappointed 
me. 

Do you remember with what delight I came 
to France, the country of Liberte, Egalite, and 
Fraternite ? But now I have seen those three 
magic words in practice, how the whole course 
of my ideas has changed ! Not only are my 
theories on the nature of governments no longer 
the same, but my confidence in the individual 
happiness that each can obtain from these 
governments is utterly shattered. 

But you will say, I argue like a reactionary. 
Let me try to explain. Am I not now a woman 
of experience, a woman of six years' experience, 
which ought to count as double, for every day 
has brought me a double sensation, the one of 
coming face to face with the reality, and the 
other, the effort of driving from my mind the 
remembrance of what I expected to find ? 

You know how I loved the primitive soul 
of the people, how I sympathise with them, and 



238 THE END OF THE DREAM 

how I hoped that some scheme for the better- 
ment of their condition would be carried out. 

But I expected in France the same good 
honest Turks I knew in our Eastern villages, 
and it was from the Eastern simplicity and 
loyalty that I drew my conclusions about the 
people of the West. You know now what they 
are ! And do not for a moment imagine that 
I am the only one to make this mistake : nine 
out of ten of my compatriots, men and women, 
would have the same expectation of them. 
Until they have come to the West to see for 
themselves and had some of the experiences 
that we have had, they will never appreciate 
the calm, leisurely people of our country. 

How dangerous it is to urge those Orientals 
forward, only to reduce them in a few years to 
the same state of stupidity as the poor de- 
generate peoples of the West, fed on unhealthy 
literature and poisoned with alcohol. 

You are right : it is in the West that I have 
learned to appreciate my country. Here I 
have studied its origin, its history (and I still 
know only too little of it), but I shall take away 
with me very serious knowledge about Turkey. 

But again I say, what a disappointment the 



THE END OF THE DREAM 239 

West has been. Yes, taking it all round I must 
own that I am again a disenchanUe. Do you 
know, I am now afraid even of a charwoman 
who comes to work for me. Alas ! I have learned 
of what she is capable — theft, hatred, vengeance, 
and the greed of money, for which she would sell 
her soul. 

I told the editor of a Paris paper one day that 
I blushed at the manner in which he encouraged 
dirty linen to be washed in public. " All your 
papers are the same," I said. " Take them one 
after the other and see if one article can be 
found which is favourable to your poor country. 
You give the chief place to horrible crimes. 
Your leading article contains something scan- 
dalous about a minister, and from these articles 
France is judged not only by her own people 
but by the whole world." 

He did not contradict me, but smiling malici- 
ously, he answered, " Les journalistes ont a coeur 
d'etre aussi veridique que possible." (" Journal- 
ists must try to be as truthful as possible.") 
A clever phrase, perhaps, but worse than any- 
thing he could have written in the six pages of 
his paper. 

But perhaps I am leaving you under the im- 



240 THE END OF THE DREAM 

pression, desenchantee though I be, that noth- 
ing has pleased me in the West. Not at all ! 
I have many delightful impressions to take 
back with me, and I want to return some day 
if the " Kismet " will allow it. 

Munich, Venice, the Basque Countries, the 
Riviera, and London I hope to see again. Art 
and music, the delightful libraries, the little 
towns where I have worked, thought, and 
discovered so many things, and a few friends 
" who can understand " — surely these are at- 
tractions great enough to bring me back to 
Europe again. 

The countries I have seen are beautiful enough, 
but civilisation has spoiled them. To take a 
copy of what it was going to destroy, however, 
civilisation created art — art in so many forms, 
art in which I had revelled in the West. It was 
civilisation that collected musical harmonies, 
civilisation that produced Wagner, and music 
to my mind is the finest of all its works. 

But there are books too, you will say, wonder- 
ful books. Yes, but in the heart of Asia there 
are quite as many masterpieces, and they are 
far more reposeful. 



THE END OF THE DREAM 241 

6th March. 

This morning early I was wakened by the sun, 
the advance-guard of what I expect away yonder. 
From my window I see a portion of the harbour, 
and the curious ships which start and arrive 
from all corners of the earth. Again I see the 
Bosphorus with its ships, which in my childish 
imagination were fairy godmothers who would 
one day take me far, far away . . . and now 
they are the fairy godmothers who will take 
me back again. 

I like to watch this careless, boisterous, gay 
crowd of Marseilles. It is just a little like the 
port of Echelles du Levant with its variegated 
costumes, its dirt, which the sun makes bear- 
able, and the continual cries and quarrelling 
among men of all nations. 

All my trunks are packed and ready, and it 
is with joy and not without regret that I see I 
have no hatbox. Not that I care for that 
curious and very unattractive invention, the 
fashionable hat, but it is the external symbol 
of liberty, and now I am setting it aside for ever. 
My tchatchaff is ready, and once we have passed 
the Piraeus I shall put it on. How strange I 

shall feel clad again from head to foot in a black 

Q 



242 THE END OF THE DREAM 

mantle all out of fashion, for the Turks have 
narrowed their tchatchaffs as the Western 
women have tightened their skirts. It will not 
be without emotion, either, that I feel a black 
veil over my face, a veil between me and the 
sun, a veil to prevent me from seeing it as I saw 
it for the first time at Nice from my wide open 
window. 

Yet what anguish, what terrible anguish would 
it not be for me to put on that veil again, if I 
did not hope to see so many of those I have 
really loved, the companions of my childhood, 
friends I know who wanted me and have missed 
me. Even when I left Constantinople, you 
know under what painful circumstances, I hoped 
to return one day. 

" The world is a big garden which belongs to 
us all," said a Turkish warrior of the past ; 
" one must wander about and gather its most 
agreeable fruits as one will." Ah ! the holy 
philosophy ! yet how far are we from ever 
attempting to understand it ! Will there ever 
come a personality strong enough, with a voice 
powerful enough to persuade us that this philo- 
sophy is for our sovereign being, and that with- 
out it we shall be led and lead others to dis- 
appointments ? 



THE END OF THE DREAM 243 

During the time I was away yonder, I believed 
in the infallibility of new theories. I had almost 
completely neglected the books of our wise men 
of the East, but I have read them in the libraries 
of the West, where I have neglected modern 
literature for the pleasure of studying that philo- 
sophy, which shows the vanity of these struggles 
and the suffering that can follow. 

I am longing to see an old uncle from the 
Caucasus. When we were young girls he pitied 
us because we were so unarmed against the disen- 
chantment which inevitably had to come to us. 

" You are of another century," we said to 
him. " You reason with theories you find re- 
markable, but we want to go forward, we want 
to fight for progress, and that is only right." 

Ah ! he knew what he was talking about, 
that old uncle, when he spoke of the disenchant- 
ment of life. 

" You are arguing as I argued when I was a 
little boy, and my father gave me the answer 
that I have given to you. My children," he 
continued, " life does not consist in always 
asking for more : believe me, there is more merit 
in living happily on as little as you can, than 
in struggling to rise on the defeat of others. 
I have fought in all the battles against the 



244 THE END OF THE DREAM 

Russians, and had great experience of life, but 
I remind you of the fact merely lest you should 
think me a vulgar fatalist in the hands of 
destiny. I, too, have had many struggles, and 
it was my duty." 

What a lot I shall have to tell this dear old 
uncle ! How well we shall understand each 
other now, how happy he will be to see that I 
have understood him ! We shall speak in that 
language which I need to speak again after six 
long years. Loving the East to fanaticism as I 
do, to me it stands for all that glorious past 
which the younger generation should appreciate 
but not blame, all the past with which I find 
myself so united. 

I will tell this dear old uncle (and indeed am 
I not as old and experienced as he ?) that I love 
my country to-day as I never loved it before, 
and if only I may be able to prove this I shall 
ask nothing more of life. 



Naples. 
I can only write you a few lines to-day. The 
sea has been so rough that many of the pas- 
sengers have preferred to remain on board. 
Some one impertinently asked me if I were 



THE END OF THE DREAM 245 

afraid to go on shore, but I did not answer, 
having too much to say. Around me I hear the 
language which once I spoke with such delight ; 
now it has become odious to me, as odious as 
that Italy which I have buried like a friend of 
the past. 

Now there is a newspaper boy on board crying 
with rapture "Another Italian victory." He 
offers me a paper. I want to shout my hatred 
of his country, I want to call from Heaven the 
vengeance of Allah on these cowardly Italians, 
but my tongue is tied and my lips will not give 
utterance to the thoughts I feel. I stand like 
one dazed. 

Surely these accounts of victory are false. 
Are not these reports prepared beforehand to 
give courage to the Italian soldiers in their 
glorious mission of butchering the Turks, those 
fine valiant men who will stand up for their 
independence as long as a man remains to fight ? 

At last I go and lock myself in my cabin, so 
as not to hear their hateful jubilation, but they 
follow me even to my solitude. Some one 
knocks. Reluctantly I open. It is a letter. 
But there must be some error. Who can have 
written to me when I particularly asked that I 
should have no letters until I arrived ? 



£ 



246 THE END OF THE DREAM 

But the letter came from Turkey, and the 
Turkish stamp almost frightened me : for a long 
time I had not the courage to open it. When 
at last I slowly cut the envelope of that letter, 
I found it contained the cutting of a newspaper 
which announced the death of the dear old 
uncle whom more than anyone I was longing 
to see again. 

Outside the conquerors were crying out, even 
louder than before, " More Turkish losses, more 
Turkish losses." I folded up the letter and put 
it back in its envelope with a heart too bitter 
for tears. 

What did it all mean ? What was the 
warning that fate was sending to me in this 
cruel manner ? DisenchantSe I left Turkey, 
dSsenchantSe I have left Europe. Is that role 
to be mine till the end of my days ? — Your 
affectionate friend, Zeyneb. 



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